


Truthful Child

by catbru



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbru/pseuds/catbru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the attempt to save the royal family from temporal disaster, Pluto succeeds in saving only one. The only time they can go is when neither exist, a young girl hurts, and the ability to fix things is still within reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The End of Utopia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never know where to put these, so I figured the beginning is the best place to go!
> 
> I finished this story awhile ago, but it wouldn't have been possible without the encouragement of many reviewers over on ff.net. So I thank them, and I especially thank Antigone2 from there who poked me when I hadn't updated and assured me things weren't as stupid as I feared. (She wasn't a beta, but more of a cheerleader?)

**Chapter One**  
_– The End of Utopia_

The thing about running a peaceful planet that had not seen any major wars in a few centuries was that despite all the training was that there was little preparation that could actually prepare an army for war. King Endymion worried, often at night while his wife slept peacefully beside him, that there would be an occasion where their small system would be pulled into something that not even their heroes could triumph over. Alliances were crucial, especially for a kingdom as far removed from the heavy traffic other galaxies faced. Without them, a threat would not be realized until it was too late.

Princess Kakyuu, though a peaceful creature by design, came from a distant system that saw war all too frequently. Flanked by three Starlights, her sailor senshi, there was no doubting her promise for conflict should the border treaties between systems hinder her people's first chance at peace in centuries.

"Please, do not misunderstand me," the foreign princess said in a gentle tone. "I do not wish for it to come to any bloodshed. This is why I have come to you first,  _before_  your treaty with the Delbians is finalized."

Serenity smiled warmly from her place beside him, and though it would look patronizing on other dignitaries, from her it was always perceived as it was intended, as genuine. "I never believed for a moment that you came here with only intentions for conflict." Then she leaned forward, a mix of curiosity and concern on her open face. "Please, I wish animosity with no one. What sort of compromise would you propose?"

To say that Serenity did not worry about threats would be an insult to his queen and wife both. She had fought constantly to protect what would become their kingdom in their youth, and still kept a wary eye for possible dangers. However, he had long ago promised that he would be the one to keep an avid eye on the whole scenario so that she could think only of peace and prosperity. Her skill for diplomacy and his for tactical made their ruling union a more synergetic endeavor. And, despite their youthful adventures, Serenity possessed an intense curiosity about people, familiar and foreign alike. She would ask about a person's daily routine, no matter how mundane, if she were allowed to.

So, while his wife was free to welcome and negotiate with little worry, Endymion cast a critical eye over their guests. One woman in particular caught his interest. She was regarding him in the same way he was her, as though the other had little hope of becoming an ally without first pleasing their respective monarchs. She was, based on the limited knowledge he had on the three Starlights, perhaps the dangerous one in the trio. The other two gave an aura of more control, a quiet deadly grace.

It was this one, though, that stood between them in height, with the ferocious gleam in her eyes that promised immediate death to anyone who even thought of harming her princess that set Endymion on alert. He had seen that look so many times before, both in the face of his queen's own senshi and the mirror.

The silent showdown was one that could not be won, but Endymion maintained eye contact for longer than would be acceptable in a casual perusal of faces. Neither blinked, and as they continued their battle of will, neither noticed that they were becoming more noticeably tense to those closest to them.

If he had not been so engrossed in his stare off, he would have noticed that Princess Kakyuu was the first of the two monarchs to realize what was happening. He missed her look of shock and worry, as though afraid this would reflect poorly on her. He also missed Serenity's bemused expression as she exchanged looks with the princess.

He noticed nothing of this until he felt her small hand rest lightly over his own. Keeping an eye on the foreign senshi for as long as he could, he turned to look at his wife.

"You're being overly cautious, Love," she murmured softly as she brushed the back of her fingers across his jaw. Centuries later, despite how much she had changed, one thing that had remained the same was her unashamed and open displays of affection. Less enthusiastic in public, yet still as rib bruising when they had no visitors. More loudly this time, so that their visitors would not feel as though they were intruding, she added, "This is a meeting for peace, but understandably, some of us are a bit protective."

"It is no burden to have those that care for our well being," Princess Kakyuu responded, visibly calmer. "Starfighter has been by my side since the beginning."

Though he had never been one to overtly display his own affection, Endymion leaned into her touch. The monarchs began their deliberations again, continuing as though the interruption had never occurred.

His attention was soon caught by very minute movement to the left. His daughter, standing next to the other senshi, was trying her best to stand still, but her legs had fallen asleep causing her to shift from one foot to another. She noticed his look and blushed, trying to remain still and appear as strong as any senshi.

Sailor Moon, Small Lady, Chibiusa, Usagi. It didn't matter what she was called or what role she played, she was Endymion's daughter. More importantly, she was the daughter of his wife. He hoped there was not a day where he looked at her and did not remember the small little girl who begged him for bedtime stories. Selfishly, it was mainly because of her that he hoped no war would see this Solar System during their reign. If so, his daughter, being Sailor Moon, would be at the front and either lead them to victory or fall trying. If they lost her, he was not sure how either Serenity or himself could pull through the devastation.

Offering a small smile, invisible to most, he discreetly shifted his knees. Blushing, his daughter returned his smile, more broad and as blinding as her mothers, as she made a show of shifting her legs. She had asked him, a few days after the first time she had stood in on these meetings, how people who stood still for so long did not keel over. Endymion had explained the subtle shifting of joints to encourage circulation and how locking them was generally what caused such catastrophes in the first place.

The meeting ended not long after, and their guests were shown to the wing where their rooms were. They would stay another few days to strengthen plans made. The Sailor Senshi left to continue their training, leaving Endymion to escort his wife to the library. Officially, they would be discussing matters at length. Unofficially, she would curl up against his side and indulge in a quick nap while he went through the official requests of the outer lying provinces.

**xoxoxox**

An intense pain shot through his chest. Dimly, he recalled the medical training he had received in college and wondered if this was a heart attack. Then a sense of dread filled him, and he knew that whatever it was, a heart attack would be welcome in comparison.

Endymion tried not to let the pain show, tried to continue down the hall with his wife as they made their way to lunch. They would eat, and then after that, they would enjoy a leisurely afternoon in the gardens. They would probably argue over whether or not Princess Kakyuu was as trustworthy as Serenity believed her to be, or if the aliens were hiding behind an unknown agenda for more land and power. Serenity would say that they should always trust people until they gave them a reason not to, and he would counter that if they had not been at least a little cautious over the centuries, the Solar System would have been dominated and turned into a dictatorship by a green smurf with a grudge. After dinner, when Small Lady was finished with her training, the three of them would sit in the library and drink cocoa in front of the fireplace. Then he and his wife would retire to their bedroom. It would be a regular day, encased in familiarity and peace. It would be living.

Hot thorns swept through his chest, brutally searching for something there and tearing at everything in its way. Unable to keep up the facade any longer, he cried out as his steps faltered and his hand latched tightly around Serenity's wrist.

"Endymion?" Serenity followed him down as his knees buckled and collapsed beneath him. "What is it? What's wrong? What should I do?"

His grip on her shoulders was probably painfully tight, his knuckles white, though she gave no protest. Looking at her, he felt s sense of dread that nearly overshadowed the pain. He had not truly felt mortality in centuries, except perhaps for the time when the Dark Moon waged war against them, but he tasted it now, bitter on his tongue. Would this be the last time he saw her? Had he already seen the last of his daughter? Panic coiled through the pain, and despite having been with her for far longer than many countries had been in existence, there still had not been enough time.

A flash of purple and green caught his eye just beyond Serenity. Pluto was running toward them, the look in her eyes telling him that this was much worse than he believed.

Then the entire world shook.

"Go get Small Lady." When she looked ready to protest, he cut her off with a quick reassurance. "I'll be fine, just go get her."

Finally, Serenity nodded. With one last look, she stood and sprinted toward the training ground.

"What is it, Pluto?"

"Something has happened to change history." The tall woman took a strong stance beside him.

"What happened?"

She did not answer at first. Bringing her staff up in a wide arc, she slammed the tip into the ground. Only after they were engulfed in a transparent sphere of purple and gold did she respond. "You died."

**xoxoxox**

The echo of her footsteps down the corridor could barely be heard over the trembling earth. Serenity paid attention to neither of these, desperate to get her daughter and return to Endymion. Despite his assurances, something within her knew that there was a change about to come his way.

The toe of her shoe caught in a widening crack, and though she did not fall, the few seconds it took to regain her balance possibly saved her from being crushed by the large piece of broken ceiling that crashed where she would have been. Taking a startled step back, Serenity tried to find a way about the quartz obstacle. When her eyes passed over the window, the queen gasped in horror.

The palace, while crumbling around her, was the least affected by the horror she saw. Their once pristine land, full of trees and life, was slowly disintegrating in an ever changing fluctuation. Different scenes carved themselves into the growing wasteland, and once she could even make out the tattered banners of the Delbian empire, caked in dried blood and dirt. Finally, after the land shifted again and again, it slowly disintegrated to rubble, drifting in absolute nothingness. Their utopia was turning to dust before her eyes.

Climbing over the boulder, Serenity forced herself to think only of her daughter. She would mourn the loss of her people once she was certain her family was safe.

"Mamma!" Her daughter's cry sent relief through the queen as she turned. Sailor Moon ran toward her, dodging the falling detritus. "Mamma, something's wrong. Everyone disappeared during training."

"I know." Serenity failed to keep the fear from her voice. She grabbed her daughter's wrist and turned back the way she came.

Sailor Moon followed without complaint for the first few seconds. Then, without warning, she slowed her pace, trying to pull them back in the opposite direction. "Mamma wait, we need to stop this!"

"We will, but we need to get to your father first."

"Papa? Why, what's wrong with him?"

When Serenity did not answer, the girl picked her pace up again. This time, it was Serenity struggling to keep up.

Minutes later they reached the corridor where she had last seen her husband. Pluto was with him, concentrating on keeping a barrier between them and time.

Endymion saw them both, and his usual calm demeanor was gone as the relief he felt radiated from his face. He stood despite the pain and reached toward his family.

**xoxoxox**

Death was never the same way twice. Mamoru realized this as he saw his soul ripped from his body.  
_How long? How long until she discovers I'm not coming home?_

The countenance of his enemy, so sharp and clear before, slowly blurred as one by one, everything drifted away. There was no more pain, no more worry. All he regretted was that he would not have the chance to love her more.

" _Usako."_

Then there was nothing.

**xoxoxox**

Endymion choked back the scream as he watched his daughter disappear, his fingers shaking as his hand stretched to where she had been only seconds before. One moment, she was running toward him, passing her mother even with much shorter legs. Then, she had simply ceased to exist, worse than the fading memory of a dream.

Serenity stumbled, dress rippling as her knees shook from what she had just seen. The same horror and grief he felt shone in her eyes. "No," he heard her soft cry.

A violent tremor tore through the castle, this time breaking the walls and bringing down the pillars around them. Wind tore through the emptiness, whipping around debris and dust, none of which he would even allow himself to think of having once been his only child. Cracks ruptured the floor, spider-webbing across the stone as large chunks of the ground broke away from each other, anchored by nothing and drifting slowly. His strangled cry broke Serenity out of her shock as she moved forward again.

"Pluto, let me out of here, I have to get her," he demanded as he stepped forward, preparing to drag her wife to safety if he must.

" _No!_ " The senshi's harsh voice stopped him where he stood. "If you leave here, time will catch up with all of us."

The ground beneath the queen crumbled around her feet. Serenity leaped from the last floating rock, hand stretched toward his.

" _Serenity,_ " Endymion gasped as he reached toward her, willing the bubble to extent just a little bit further. He could not lose her, too.

"Come on, you can make it." Their fingertips were so close that if they breathed they would touch, but just when he was feeling a moment's hope, his wife began to slowly drift away. "No! Pluto, do something!"

The Timekeeper's voice cracked when she responded, the emotional and physical strain evident. "I'm trying, but there's just... I can't..."

He was no longer listening. The winds of time crumbling around them whipped even through the strong barrier, and he could only watch as it battered and pounded against his wife's body. Above the tempest's roar, he heard her call to him. " _Endymion._ "

The he watched as the air of time around her shifted, and her eyes and face grew younger, silver hair darkening to honey. Eyes that he had not seen in over a millennia grew wide with fear as the rapid decent of age slowed to a stop. " _Mamo-chan?_ "

Before he could respond, time once again picked up. In horror, he watched as she aged much faster than she should, as a crystal around her body shattered and splintered beyond repair. A keening wail started slowly as her hair turned gray, not silver, as she shriveled in on herself with age and heartache. The noise was deafening, louder even than the buffeting winds around them, when she finally turned to ash before his eyes.

It was not until the winds stopped, when everything outside the protective bubble merely ceased to exist, that he realized the sound came from his own throat.

**-End Chapter One**


	2. To the Beginning

Chapter Two – To The Beginning

Dust puffed out from under them as the sphere landed in the middle of a run down shack. After all the noise they had just escaped, the sudden silence roared in his ears.

The sphere pulsed around them before collapsing, and the last air of his home dissolved in the tepid humidity. Pluto sagged to the floor, bearing her weight against the long staff as a bead of perspiration dripped from her nose. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the new flow of time, reacquainting herself with a phenomena beyond that of minutes and seconds. "We are off by a month."

Endymion slowly lifted his head. Nothing seemed quite real. He was encased in a glass jar, giving everything on the outside a surreal sense. He lifted his hands before him, noticing the dirt that caked his usual pristine gloves.

"If we are to fix this, I will need time to rest. I...do not know how much time I will need."

Pluto's voice filtered sluggishly through his ears and into his brain, and he looked up at her in confusion. "Where are we?" The words were thick in his throat.

Black boots filled his vision, and when he looked up to see her towering over him, he could not help but wonder how someone so tall and regal could look so broken.

"You must rest," she whispered as she knelt, taking him by the arm. He followed her up, limbs protesting. She silently led him to a room to the side, as run down as the rest of the place. "We will stay here for the night. Tomorrow we will do reconnaissance and see what we must do."

The old mattress smelled of must and earth, soiled over years of misuse. Endymion stared down at it, eyes tracing the contours of questionable stains. Pluto moved around him as she dressed the mattress with threadbare linens.

Pluto had to guide him as though he were a small child, moving his hands to the buttons of his coat, then his shirt. Each article of clothing were folded neatly on the warped end table beside his bed, the dirtied gloves resting on top. Staring at those, his eyes burned. Serenity's not going to let this opportunity to tease me slide. His vision blurred at the edges as he turned to look at Pluto, wondering what she would have him do now.

For an instant, she just looked at him in return before turning her head away, breath choked in her throat. She left him, then, toward the bathroom. He heard water running and the creaking of ancient hinges.

When she returned, her eyes were rimmed with red. She placed a glass in one hand, and two pills in the other. "These will help you sleep."

He did not care what the pills were. They could be simple sleeping pills, which would likely lull him into a light doze that would trap him in nightmares, or cyanide tablets, which would take them away. He knew which he would prefer, but he didn't think she would want to know. So he took them, chasing them down with the acrid water.

She set the empty glass next to the stack of his clothes and gently forced him to sit on the mattress. Endymion stared up at her for the long minutes it too for the pills to take effect. Drowsiness was first, and each blink was a struggle. Pluto nudged his shoulders, attempting to lay him on the mattress, but panic surged through his medication induced exhaustion.

"I...I need..." his eyes darted around in confusion as he struggled, needing to sit up. His eyes darted around the room, trying to find something. "Serenity?" Where was she, why wasn't she here?

"We'll bring them back," Pluto vowed, voice course with a fierce vehemence. "I swear to you, we will find a way."

The fight left him, exhaustion pulling him down to the mattress. She pulled a thin sheet over him, tucking the edges securely around his body. Before she left, her fingers brushed over his cheeks, and then she was gone.

Pulling the pillow from under his head, he clutched it to him as he turned to face the wall. The material was too course, the density too soft, and his throat ached with the scream that would never come.

For the first time since his wedding, so many hundreds of years ago, Endymion slept alone.

xoxoxox

The couch was old, had been in the tiny shack years before Setsuna had taken residence in the larger house on the property. It had been the only place that she knew would be safe. Dimly, Pluto remembered once having made plans to redecorate the tiny shack, turning it into a guest house. There had been dreams for it once, and they even went so far as daring to imagine a safe haven for her princess when the younger girl just wanted a quiet place to escape to.

Now, Pluto did not know what would become of any of this. Her time line was destroyed, obliterated by an enemy she did not yet know. She should not be, and they only existed here because of displacement and as anomalies in the strands of time, echoes that should have faded. It was only her impertinence to save those she loved more than her own life that they were here now, and why she had not blinked out of existance.

She had failed in her mission to keep the royal family safe. Her queen and princess were dead, and she doubted her king could survive the loss. He was a strong leader, the perfect counterpart to his wife, but it had been his family that had given him that strength. Pluto could only stay strong because she knew her king needed her to be. He needed to mourn, and while they would have little time to do so, she vowed to give him as long as she could. Her ladies deserved no less.

The failure, and the shame of it, burned brightly in her chest. Pluto should have gotten to them more quickly, should have sensed what was wrong sooner, even if only by a few minutes. Seconds could have made all the difference. But she could not, and now everything was wrong because of her inability to do her duty.

Heart aching, she curled into her knees, hiding her mourning from the empty room.

xoxoxox

There was, of all things, a thread that led from her to a closet. It shimmered in the pale light of her room, shifting from a bright amber to a more rusted copper the closer it was to the door.

Usagi could not look in the closet. Of all the things she knew in the world, the one that screamed in the back of her mind was that she should not look in there. Even as it beckoned to her, making her fingers itch with curiosity, to open it would result in catastrophe.

"You...won't like it there." The small, familiar voice caused Usagi to spin around. Chibiusa was with her, shifting from Senshi to Princess, from school uniform to dress. The girl kept changing, features blurring and shifting ever so slightly, yet even when the girl looked nothing as she should, Usagi still knew her as Chibiusa.

"What's happening?" There was a feeling on the air. Loss and death swirled around her in a choking miasma, and if it weren't for the girl with her, she would have run.

Chibiusa suddenly leaped forward, wrapping her arms tightly around Usagi's waist. "Don't let him go. Don't let him be lost. You have to watch him!"

"Watch who? What are you talking about? What's wrong?" She tried to pull the sobbing girl away, to see her face. Then she could see, could know, what it was that frightened the child so much. But the grip around her middle grew stronger.

"Keep the truthful child safe."

Before Usagi could ask who her future daughter meant, the closet rattled and a loud bang echoed from the other side. Both jumped, and as Usagi stepped toward it to see what was behind there, something she would never do while awake, Chibiusa tugged her back. "No! You can't know what's there yet! Just watch over him!"

Usagi ignored the girl, drawn toward the door. Her hand reached for the handle as the pounding got louder. Gripping the knob, she pulled it back.

A weight landing on her legs caused Usagi to shriek as she flailed on her bed. Luna, who had just hopped through the window, yowled as she toppled off the mattress.

"Luna, you scared me!" Heart pounding in her chest, Usagi wondered if she would be able to sleep through the adrenaline rush. Her eyes were wide open, senses on alert, and she knew that there would be no sleeping for at least a half hour.

"I scared you?" Luna hopped on the bed, sitting on the edge as she glowered. "I'm the one who was thrown! I thought you were having a fit!"

Sighing, Usagi pulled her knees to her chest, propping her head up as she looked at the cat. The dream, or nightmare, was slowly fading away, but the urgency in Chibiusa's voice rang through her mind. "I'm sorry."

Luna padded over the covers toward the young teen, resting her paws beneath the girl's knees before pressing a small damp nose against the curve of a cheek. "Usagi, are you really okay?"

For one brief moment, the cat was sure that her charge, chewing her lower lip and wringing the hem of her pajamas as she could not make eye contact, would open up, would tell her what troubles had been plaguing the young girl for far too long. Then Usagi looked up, a mask of happiness and joy on her face. "I'm fine, Luna. It was just a weird dream, that's all. I barely even remember it."

Luna just stared at the girl, feline eyes glowing in the moonlight. Then she heaved a sigh and leaped onto the windowsill and back out into the night.

Usagi did not know why she just didn't tell people. They knew she missed Mamoru, that was perhaps so blatantly obvious that someone who didn't know her would guess. She would be fine with just missing him. It was the silence that was hurting the most. He had warned her that he probably couldn't answer back right away, but it had been so long since he'd left. But she wanted to be strong, for him and everyone else, because she needed to prove to people that she could do this and others had it so much more harder, even if it meant nights where she could barely hold onto her sanity.

The phone was at her ear before she realized it. Pressing redial, her breath held tight in her chest, a part of her wished that this time would be different. An illogical fantasy that she hardly acknowledged, where he just showed up one day. Surprise, Usako. Did you miss me? Sorry, a flock of carrier pigeons destroyed all of my information, and it was as though I was never accepted. Then I had to travel back by steam boats, so I couldn't exactly call you. You're not disappointed I'm home early, are you? Instead, she got the same emotionless message, asking her to leave her name and he would call her back, and she had to laugh at her own ridiculous daydream otherwise she'd break.

Which she couldn't do, because she was strong.

The door creaked open behind her. At first, she thought of her dream and believed that whatever had been in the closet there was now out to get her here. Spinning on her chair, she prepared herself for whatever would come.

Instead, Chibi-Chibi stood, tiny and afraid, in the doorway. It was becoming a habit with the young girl, but one that Usagi was not about to break. Especially tonight.

"Another nightmare?" The small girl nodded. "Come here."

The bed, still warm from when she woke earlier, cocooned them both. Usagi was able to fall asleep in a fog of the fresh clean scent of children and olives.

xoxoxox

There was no easy drift into consciousness. No gentle prodding on the rare day when he would wake up last, or silken strands of hair tickling his nose when he was not. One moment, Endymion was asleep and wrapped in the nightmare of memory, and the next he was staring at a stark wall with peeling paint.

Dressing was a process of muscle memory, and he glared at his fingers as they shook while buttoning his cuffs. He would have to get used to the fact that no one else would stand in front of him in the mornings, checking for invisible creases. He would no longer have to pretend to forget those last buttons, if only to feel her soft skin against his wrists as she did them, teasing that forgetfulness was a sign of old age.

Ignoring the shabbiness of the sparse room, he straightened his jacket and strode into the living area. Pluto was awake, busy at work wiping years of grunge from the kitchen sink. Despite the futility of the task, the surrounding counters and cupboards appeared cleaner than they had any right to be. He doubted she slept much at all through the night.

"Where are we?" The question he remembered from last night no longer carried the sound of confusion. It was harsh, more than he intended.

Pluto flinched, the closest she would come to jumping at the shock of his voice. "We are in a shack on Setsuna's property."

"Won't she notice we're here?"

Her pause mid scrub caught his attention. The suds beneath the scrubbing pad were brown and flecks of grime slithered over bubbles and into foam. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before quickly resuming her cleaning.

"Setsuna no longer exists in this time." The movements of her hand against the metal was slower, less hurried. "Without her dying in the future, the queen could not have had her reincarnated in the past to fight alongside Sailor Moon and the others. What you see around you are echoes of her existence. She was never here, technically, but people and places remember her. If she were to be completely removed, time would unbalance itself. Time...heals itself. Or tries to."

"How can you know for certain? Did you go out while I slept?"

Pluto shook her head. "Only to the main house to get clothes. I wasn't sure, not completely. But I found that folder." She gestured toward the table, and the pink file was thick with papers, and he could see crayon scribbles on some of the edges.

He didn't want to look, knowing what he would find, but Endymion was drawn to the table anyway. He opened the folder and had to look away as panic clawed through him, legs tingling with the urge to run. But he swallowed it down and forced himself to see what was there.

The top sheet was a crude drawing of Setsuna, after she had been reincarnated. He could tell it was her because of the green hair and red eyes, but that was about it. The caption at the top instructed the student to draw their best friend. Beneath the picture was the neater handwriting of his daughter, naming the person as 'Puu.'

Next was an illustration of Usagi, again only discernible by the yellow blobs on top of her head. Chibiusa had taken artistic license and had drawn fangs and demonic eyes, and apparently his daughter had feared a hungry Usagi.

"She got her artistic ability from her mother, I see."

Behind him was a strangled sound, and he preferred to believe it was her choking back a laugh.

"Would you like to keep those?"

The sheet below, still mostly hidden except for the instructions, told the young artist to draw her family. He straightened the pile and closed the folder without looking any further. "No. These are your memories, not mine."

Silence laid thick in the room, save for the wet scratching of the scouring pad against metal. Endymion knew he should feel some sort of relief that his daughter had not merely existed anywhere save his memories, but all that existed was the bittersweet taste of regret.

Though the folder now hid the drawings from his sight, his fingers still ran across bends and wrinkles, testament to how treasured the illustrations were to the senshi of time. For a stretch of time, the only sound was that of her furious scrubbing, the scratch of steel wool against metal grating on his ears and tearing his nerves.

"Can you do that another time?" Endymion's tone was sharp, and though he wished he had not snapped, the sudden pit of anger in his chest refused to allow an apology to escape.

The noise was replaced by a suffocating silence that only fueled his irritation. With a sharp pound of his cane, he turned toward the window to stare out at the bare tree in the yard. It looked half dead, the wiry branches stretching desperately toward the sun just out of reach behind taller buildings and an overcast sky.

"I have nothing that would fit you," Pluto said, breaking the silence and bringing him out of his mind. "I do not think it would be wise for you to wander...as you are now." Then, there was sound once again as she hurried from the table to the counter, busying herself with work. "I will go buy you a change of clothes, then if you wish you are welcome to come with to buy something more...appropriate."

She was coddling him, walking around his sharp edges with gentle feet. It annoyed him more than he wished to admit, and the desire to break something was strong.

Then she was gone, with words suggesting a warm bath or to sit in the yard, but he heard none of these. Instead, he sat at the table and stared at the folder. The only thing that saved it from being shredded was that it held the remaining traces of his daughter.

xoxoxox

The shopping trip was put on a short hiatus as Pluto entered the local library to do some minor research. Had Mamoru's absence been noticed by anyone? Though her resources were limited, the facility's computers were adequate to bypass the rudimentary security on the American school's computer system. Fifteen minutes later, she had a benign worm set up to locate any and all paperwork and email regarding the status of Mamoru.

Student Mamoru Chiba failed to arrive at his scheduled time. This phrase, and others like it, were common in what she discovered. With no next of kin listed, student's belongings have been placed in temporary storage.

After some more reading, Pluto found herself becoming increasingly annoyed. Apparently, though Usagi had been placed on his contact list in case of an emergency, the only contact on the list, no one had made the attempt at contacting someone who was 'just the girlfriend.' A few inquiries were made within the office, but apparently no one could be bothered to further investigate. Chiba was, to them, just another number on a long list of numbers, and one that was all too easily replaced.

Taking a moment to compose herself, she backtracked his would-be tracks to the airport. He had successfully checked aboard, but that was as far as his actual whereabouts went. No one cared for how many left the plane, so long as there were no bodies. However, there were two suitcases from that flight that was checked into the lost and found. Her king had always been a fastidious individual, and would have made absolute certain that his belongings were well within reach in a foreign environment. So that left the time of his disappearance sometime during the flight. There was no reports of a missing passenger, however, and without a list of who was on the flight, there was no way she could fill in the missing pieces. Acquiring the list would not be a problem, for the internet was full of erroneous information if one knew where to look. It was the people factor that made her pause. Who would know best, the person sitting beside him, or the flight attendant who offered cookies to a man who disappeared mid flight?

With a sigh, she printed off the list of passengers and flight attendants anyway. Nothing would likely come of it, but it would be something to do to keep her from going completely insane.

The contents of the list, and how to approach her king, kept her mind occupied as she browsed the local clothing store. Her patriarch was in a tremulous place, and she was afraid that one wrong move would send him spiraling some place that she would be unable to bring him back from. She had seen moods similar in him, and the only person to ever be able to bring him out of it had been his wife. The only time Pluto had feared for him had been during the attack of the dark moon kingdom, when his daughter was missing and his wife just barely out of death's reach. Add to that his injury, and many times she found herself disobeying the rules by leaving her post just to make certain he had not done anything any of them would later regret.

Absently, she placed her purchases down on the counter. The attendant raised an eyebrow at the unusual assortment of clothing; not so much that they were men's clothes, but that they obviously would not fit her slender frame. Barely bothering to glance up, Pluto said the first thing that came to mind to avoid any unwanted attention. "My boss had an incident with coffee. And he has a meeting this afternoon."

As she left, she wondered which king she would be faced with on her return. Would it be the lost little boy from the night before, or the angry man she left not long ago? Neither prospects were preferable, yet either were the only two she would face. Unless he had already progressed in the stages of grief, those two would be around for a good long while.

-End Chapter TwoChapter Two – To The Beginning

Dust puffed out from under them as the sphere landed in the middle of a run down shack. After all the noise they had just escaped, the sudden silence roared in his ears.

The sphere pulsed around them before collapsing, and the last air of his home dissolved in the tepid humidity. Pluto sagged to the floor, bearing her weight against the long staff as a bead of perspiration dripped from her nose. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the new flow of time, reacquainting herself with a phenomena beyond that of minutes and seconds. "We are off by a month."

Endymion slowly lifted his head. Nothing seemed quite real. He was encased in a glass jar, giving everything on the outside a surreal sense. He lifted his hands before him, noticing the dirt that caked his usual pristine gloves.

"If we are to fix this, I will need time to rest. I...do not know how much time I will need."

Pluto's voice filtered sluggishly through his ears and into his brain, and he looked up at her in confusion. "Where are we?" The words were thick in his throat.

Black boots filled his vision, and when he looked up to see her towering over him, he could not help but wonder how someone so tall and regal could look so broken.

"You must rest," she whispered as she knelt, taking him by the arm. He followed her up, limbs protesting. She silently led him to a room to the side, as run down as the rest of the place. "We will stay here for the night. Tomorrow we will do reconnaissance and see what we must do."

The old mattress smelled of must and earth, soiled over years of misuse. Endymion stared down at it, eyes tracing the contours of questionable stains. Pluto moved around him as she dressed the mattress with threadbare linens.

Pluto had to guide him as though he were a small child, moving his hands to the buttons of his coat, then his shirt. Each article of clothing were folded neatly on the warped end table beside his bed, the dirtied gloves resting on top. Staring at those, his eyes burned. Serenity's not going to let this opportunity to tease me slide. His vision blurred at the edges as he turned to look at Pluto, wondering what she would have him do now.

For an instant, she just looked at him in return before turning her head away, breath choked in her throat. She left him, then, toward the bathroom. He heard water running and the creaking of ancient hinges.

When she returned, her eyes were rimmed with red. She placed a glass in one hand, and two pills in the other. "These will help you sleep."

He did not care what the pills were. They could be simple sleeping pills, which would likely lull him into a light doze that would trap him in nightmares, or cyanide tablets, which would take them away. He knew which he would prefer, but he didn't think she would want to know. So he took them, chasing them down with the acrid water.

She set the empty glass next to the stack of his clothes and gently forced him to sit on the mattress. Endymion stared up at her for the long minutes it too for the pills to take effect. Drowsiness was first, and each blink was a struggle. Pluto nudged his shoulders, attempting to lay him on the mattress, but panic surged through his medication induced exhaustion.

"I...I need..." his eyes darted around in confusion as he struggled, needing to sit up. His eyes darted around the room, trying to find something. "Serenity?" Where was she, why wasn't she here?

"We'll bring them back," Pluto vowed, voice course with a fierce vehemence. "I swear to you, we will find a way."

The fight left him, exhaustion pulling him down to the mattress. She pulled a thin sheet over him, tucking the edges securely around his body. Before she left, her fingers brushed over his cheeks, and then she was gone.

Pulling the pillow from under his head, he clutched it to him as he turned to face the wall. The material was too course, the density too soft, and his throat ached with the scream that would never come.

For the first time since his wedding, so many hundreds of years ago, Endymion slept alone.

xoxoxox

The couch was old, had been in the tiny shack years before Setsuna had taken residence in the larger house on the property. It had been the only place that she knew would be safe. Dimly, Pluto remembered once having made plans to redecorate the tiny shack, turning it into a guest house. There had been dreams for it once, and they even went so far as daring to imagine a safe haven for her princess when the younger girl just wanted a quiet place to escape to.

Now, Pluto did not know what would become of any of this. Her time line was destroyed, obliterated by an enemy she did not yet know. She should not be, and they only existed here because of displacement and as anomalies in the strands of time, echoes that should have faded. It was only her impertinence to save those she loved more than her own life that they were here now, and why she had not blinked out of existance.

She had failed in her mission to keep the royal family safe. Her queen and princess were dead, and she doubted her king could survive the loss. He was a strong leader, the perfect counterpart to his wife, but it had been his family that had given him that strength. Pluto could only stay strong because she knew her king needed her to be. He needed to mourn, and while they would have little time to do so, she vowed to give him as long as she could. Her ladies deserved no less.

The failure, and the shame of it, burned brightly in her chest. Pluto should have gotten to them more quickly, should have sensed what was wrong sooner, even if only by a few minutes. Seconds could have made all the difference. But she could not, and now everything was wrong because of her inability to do her duty.

Heart aching, she curled into her knees, hiding her mourning from the empty room.

xoxoxox

There was, of all things, a thread that led from her to a closet. It shimmered in the pale light of her room, shifting from a bright amber to a more rusted copper the closer it was to the door.

Usagi could not look in the closet. Of all the things she knew in the world, the one that screamed in the back of her mind was that she should not look in there. Even as it beckoned to her, making her fingers itch with curiosity, to open it would result in catastrophe.

"You...won't like it there." The small, familiar voice caused Usagi to spin around. Chibiusa was with her, shifting from Senshi to Princess, from school uniform to dress. The girl kept changing, features blurring and shifting ever so slightly, yet even when the girl looked nothing as she should, Usagi still knew her as Chibiusa.

"What's happening?" There was a feeling on the air. Loss and death swirled around her in a choking miasma, and if it weren't for the girl with her, she would have run.

Chibiusa suddenly leaped forward, wrapping her arms tightly around Usagi's waist. "Don't let him go. Don't let him be lost. You have to watch him!"

"Watch who? What are you talking about? What's wrong?" She tried to pull the sobbing girl away, to see her face. Then she could see, could know, what it was that frightened the child so much. But the grip around her middle grew stronger.

"Keep the truthful child safe."

Before Usagi could ask who her future daughter meant, the closet rattled and a loud bang echoed from the other side. Both jumped, and as Usagi stepped toward it to see what was behind there, something she would never do while awake, Chibiusa tugged her back. "No! You can't know what's there yet! Just watch over him!"

Usagi ignored the girl, drawn toward the door. Her hand reached for the handle as the pounding got louder. Gripping the knob, she pulled it back.

A weight landing on her legs caused Usagi to shriek as she flailed on her bed. Luna, who had just hopped through the window, yowled as she toppled off the mattress.

"Luna, you scared me!" Heart pounding in her chest, Usagi wondered if she would be able to sleep through the adrenaline rush. Her eyes were wide open, senses on alert, and she knew that there would be no sleeping for at least a half hour.

"I scared you?" Luna hopped on the bed, sitting on the edge as she glowered. "I'm the one who was thrown! I thought you were having a fit!"

Sighing, Usagi pulled her knees to her chest, propping her head up as she looked at the cat. The dream, or nightmare, was slowly fading away, but the urgency in Chibiusa's voice rang through her mind. "I'm sorry."

Luna padded over the covers toward the young teen, resting her paws beneath the girl's knees before pressing a small damp nose against the curve of a cheek. "Usagi, are you really okay?"

For one brief moment, the cat was sure that her charge, chewing her lower lip and wringing the hem of her pajamas as she could not make eye contact, would open up, would tell her what troubles had been plaguing the young girl for far too long. Then Usagi looked up, a mask of happiness and joy on her face. "I'm fine, Luna. It was just a weird dream, that's all. I barely even remember it."

Luna just stared at the girl, feline eyes glowing in the moonlight. Then she heaved a sigh and leaped onto the windowsill and back out into the night.

Usagi did not know why she just didn't tell people. They knew she missed Mamoru, that was perhaps so blatantly obvious that someone who didn't know her would guess. She would be fine with just missing him. It was the silence that was hurting the most. He had warned her that he probably couldn't answer back right away, but it had been so long since he'd left. But she wanted to be strong, for him and everyone else, because she needed to prove to people that she could do this and others had it so much more harder, even if it meant nights where she could barely hold onto her sanity.

The phone was at her ear before she realized it. Pressing redial, her breath held tight in her chest, a part of her wished that this time would be different. An illogical fantasy that she hardly acknowledged, where he just showed up one day. Surprise, Usako. Did you miss me? Sorry, a flock of carrier pigeons destroyed all of my information, and it was as though I was never accepted. Then I had to travel back by steam boats, so I couldn't exactly call you. You're not disappointed I'm home early, are you? Instead, she got the same emotionless message, asking her to leave her name and he would call her back, and she had to laugh at her own ridiculous daydream otherwise she'd break.

Which she couldn't do, because she was strong.

The door creaked open behind her. At first, she thought of her dream and believed that whatever had been in the closet there was now out to get her here. Spinning on her chair, she prepared herself for whatever would come.

Instead, Chibi-Chibi stood, tiny and afraid, in the doorway. It was becoming a habit with the young girl, but one that Usagi was not about to break. Especially tonight.

"Another nightmare?" The small girl nodded. "Come here."

The bed, still warm from when she woke earlier, cocooned them both. Usagi was able to fall asleep in a fog of the fresh clean scent of children and olives.

xoxoxox

There was no easy drift into consciousness. No gentle prodding on the rare day when he would wake up last, or silken strands of hair tickling his nose when he was not. One moment, Endymion was asleep and wrapped in the nightmare of memory, and the next he was staring at a stark wall with peeling paint.

Dressing was a process of muscle memory, and he glared at his fingers as they shook while buttoning his cuffs. He would have to get used to the fact that no one else would stand in front of him in the mornings, checking for invisible creases. He would no longer have to pretend to forget those last buttons, if only to feel her soft skin against his wrists as she did them, teasing that forgetfulness was a sign of old age.

Ignoring the shabbiness of the sparse room, he straightened his jacket and strode into the living area. Pluto was awake, busy at work wiping years of grunge from the kitchen sink. Despite the futility of the task, the surrounding counters and cupboards appeared cleaner than they had any right to be. He doubted she slept much at all through the night.

"Where are we?" The question he remembered from last night no longer carried the sound of confusion. It was harsh, more than he intended.

Pluto flinched, the closest she would come to jumping at the shock of his voice. "We are in a shack on Setsuna's property."

"Won't she notice we're here?"

Her pause mid scrub caught his attention. The suds beneath the scrubbing pad were brown and flecks of grime slithered over bubbles and into foam. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before quickly resuming her cleaning.

"Setsuna no longer exists in this time." The movements of her hand against the metal was slower, less hurried. "Without her dying in the future, the queen could not have had her reincarnated in the past to fight alongside Sailor Moon and the others. What you see around you are echoes of her existence. She was never here, technically, but people and places remember her. If she were to be completely removed, time would unbalance itself. Time...heals itself. Or tries to."

"How can you know for certain? Did you go out while I slept?"

Pluto shook her head. "Only to the main house to get clothes. I wasn't sure, not completely. But I found that folder." She gestured toward the table, and the pink file was thick with papers, and he could see crayon scribbles on some of the edges.

He didn't want to look, knowing what he would find, but Endymion was drawn to the table anyway. He opened the folder and had to look away as panic clawed through him, legs tingling with the urge to run. But he swallowed it down and forced himself to see what was there.

The top sheet was a crude drawing of Setsuna, after she had been reincarnated. He could tell it was her because of the green hair and red eyes, but that was about it. The caption at the top instructed the student to draw their best friend. Beneath the picture was the neater handwriting of his daughter, naming the person as 'Puu.'

Next was an illustration of Usagi, again only discernible by the yellow blobs on top of her head. Chibiusa had taken artistic license and had drawn fangs and demonic eyes, and apparently his daughter had feared a hungry Usagi.

"She got her artistic ability from her mother, I see."

Behind him was a strangled sound, and he preferred to believe it was her choking back a laugh.

"Would you like to keep those?"

The sheet below, still mostly hidden except for the instructions, told the young artist to draw her family. He straightened the pile and closed the folder without looking any further. "No. These are your memories, not mine."

Silence laid thick in the room, save for the wet scratching of the scouring pad against metal. Endymion knew he should feel some sort of relief that his daughter had not merely existed anywhere save his memories, but all that existed was the bittersweet taste of regret.

Though the folder now hid the drawings from his sight, his fingers still ran across bends and wrinkles, testament to how treasured the illustrations were to the senshi of time. For a stretch of time, the only sound was that of her furious scrubbing, the scratch of steel wool against metal grating on his ears and tearing his nerves.

"Can you do that another time?" Endymion's tone was sharp, and though he wished he had not snapped, the sudden pit of anger in his chest refused to allow an apology to escape.

The noise was replaced by a suffocating silence that only fueled his irritation. With a sharp pound of his cane, he turned toward the window to stare out at the bare tree in the yard. It looked half dead, the wiry branches stretching desperately toward the sun just out of reach behind taller buildings and an overcast sky.

"I have nothing that would fit you," Pluto said, breaking the silence and bringing him out of his mind. "I do not think it would be wise for you to wander...as you are now." Then, there was sound once again as she hurried from the table to the counter, busying herself with work. "I will go buy you a change of clothes, then if you wish you are welcome to come with to buy something more...appropriate."

She was coddling him, walking around his sharp edges with gentle feet. It annoyed him more than he wished to admit, and the desire to break something was strong.

Then she was gone, with words suggesting a warm bath or to sit in the yard, but he heard none of these. Instead, he sat at the table and stared at the folder. The only thing that saved it from being shredded was that it held the remaining traces of his daughter.

xoxoxox

The shopping trip was put on a short hiatus as Pluto entered the local library to do some minor research. Had Mamoru's absence been noticed by anyone? Though her resources were limited, the facility's computers were adequate to bypass the rudimentary security on the American school's computer system. Fifteen minutes later, she had a benign worm set up to locate any and all paperwork and email regarding the status of Mamoru.

Student Mamoru Chiba failed to arrive at his scheduled time. This phrase, and others like it, were common in what she discovered. With no next of kin listed, student's belongings have been placed in temporary storage.

After some more reading, Pluto found herself becoming increasingly annoyed. Apparently, though Usagi had been placed on his contact list in case of an emergency, the only contact on the list, no one had made the attempt at contacting someone who was 'just the girlfriend.' A few inquiries were made within the office, but apparently no one could be bothered to further investigate. Chiba was, to them, just another number on a long list of numbers, and one that was all too easily replaced.

Taking a moment to compose herself, she backtracked his would-be tracks to the airport. He had successfully checked aboard, but that was as far as his actual whereabouts went. No one cared for how many left the plane, so long as there were no bodies. However, there were two suitcases from that flight that was checked into the lost and found. Her king had always been a fastidious individual, and would have made absolute certain that his belongings were well within reach in a foreign environment. So that left the time of his disappearance sometime during the flight. There was no reports of a missing passenger, however, and without a list of who was on the flight, there was no way she could fill in the missing pieces. Acquiring the list would not be a problem, for the internet was full of erroneous information if one knew where to look. It was the people factor that made her pause. Who would know best, the person sitting beside him, or the flight attendant who offered cookies to a man who disappeared mid flight?

With a sigh, she printed off the list of passengers and flight attendants anyway. Nothing would likely come of it, but it would be something to do to keep her from going completely insane.

The contents of the list, and how to approach her king, kept her mind occupied as she browsed the local clothing store. Her patriarch was in a tremulous place, and she was afraid that one wrong move would send him spiraling some place that she would be unable to bring him back from. She had seen moods similar in him, and the only person to ever be able to bring him out of it had been his wife. The only time Pluto had feared for him had been during the attack of the dark moon kingdom, when his daughter was missing and his wife just barely out of death's reach. Add to that his injury, and many times she found herself disobeying the rules by leaving her post just to make certain he had not done anything any of them would later regret.

Absently, she placed her purchases down on the counter. The attendant raised an eyebrow at the unusual assortment of clothing; not so much that they were men's clothes, but that they obviously would not fit her slender frame. Barely bothering to glance up, Pluto said the first thing that came to mind to avoid any unwanted attention. "My boss had an incident with coffee. And he has a meeting this afternoon."

As she left, she wondered which king she would be faced with on her return. Would it be the lost little boy from the night before, or the angry man she left not long ago? Neither prospects were preferable, yet either were the only two she would face. Unless he had already progressed in the stages of grief, those two would be around for a good long while.

-End Chapter Two

Chapter Two – To The Beginning

Dust puffed out from under them as the sphere landed in the middle of a run down shack. After all the noise they had just escaped, the sudden silence roared in his ears.

The sphere pulsed around them before collapsing, and the last air of his home dissolved in the tepid humidity. Pluto sagged to the floor, bearing her weight against the long staff as a bead of perspiration dripped from her nose. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the new flow of time, reacquainting herself with a phenomena beyond that of minutes and seconds. "We are off by a month."

Endymion slowly lifted his head. Nothing seemed quite real. He was encased in a glass jar, giving everything on the outside a surreal sense. He lifted his hands before him, noticing the dirt that caked his usual pristine gloves.

"If we are to fix this, I will need time to rest. I...do not know how much time I will need."

Pluto's voice filtered sluggishly through his ears and into his brain, and he looked up at her in confusion. "Where are we?" The words were thick in his throat.

Black boots filled his vision, and when he looked up to see her towering over him, he could not help but wonder how someone so tall and regal could look so broken.

"You must rest," she whispered as she knelt, taking him by the arm. He followed her up, limbs protesting. She silently led him to a room to the side, as run down as the rest of the place. "We will stay here for the night. Tomorrow we will do reconnaissance and see what we must do."

The old mattress smelled of must and earth, soiled over years of misuse. Endymion stared down at it, eyes tracing the contours of questionable stains. Pluto moved around him as she dressed the mattress with threadbare linens.

Pluto had to guide him as though he were a small child, moving his hands to the buttons of his coat, then his shirt. Each article of clothing were folded neatly on the warped end table beside his bed, the dirtied gloves resting on top. Staring at those, his eyes burned. Serenity's not going to let this opportunity to tease me slide. His vision blurred at the edges as he turned to look at Pluto, wondering what she would have him do now.

For an instant, she just looked at him in return before turning her head away, breath choked in her throat. She left him, then, toward the bathroom. He heard water running and the creaking of ancient hinges.

When she returned, her eyes were rimmed with red. She placed a glass in one hand, and two pills in the other. "These will help you sleep."

He did not care what the pills were. They could be simple sleeping pills, which would likely lull him into a light doze that would trap him in nightmares, or cyanide tablets, which would take them away. He knew which he would prefer, but he didn't think she would want to know. So he took them, chasing them down with the acrid water.

She set the empty glass next to the stack of his clothes and gently forced him to sit on the mattress. Endymion stared up at her for the long minutes it too for the pills to take effect. Drowsiness was first, and each blink was a struggle. Pluto nudged his shoulders, attempting to lay him on the mattress, but panic surged through his medication induced exhaustion.

"I...I need..." his eyes darted around in confusion as he struggled, needing to sit up. His eyes darted around the room, trying to find something. "Serenity?" Where was she, why wasn't she here?

"We'll bring them back," Pluto vowed, voice course with a fierce vehemence. "I swear to you, we will find a way."

The fight left him, exhaustion pulling him down to the mattress. She pulled a thin sheet over him, tucking the edges securely around his body. Before she left, her fingers brushed over his cheeks, and then she was gone.

Pulling the pillow from under his head, he clutched it to him as he turned to face the wall. The material was too course, the density too soft, and his throat ached with the scream that would never come.

For the first time since his wedding, so many hundreds of years ago, Endymion slept alone.

xoxoxox

The couch was old, had been in the tiny shack years before Setsuna had taken residence in the larger house on the property. It had been the only place that she knew would be safe. Dimly, Pluto remembered once having made plans to redecorate the tiny shack, turning it into a guest house. There had been dreams for it once, and they even went so far as daring to imagine a safe haven for her princess when the younger girl just wanted a quiet place to escape to.

Now, Pluto did not know what would become of any of this. Her time line was destroyed, obliterated by an enemy she did not yet know. She should not be, and they only existed here because of displacement and as anomalies in the strands of time, echoes that should have faded. It was only her impertinence to save those she loved more than her own life that they were here now, and why she had not blinked out of existance.

She had failed in her mission to keep the royal family safe. Her queen and princess were dead, and she doubted her king could survive the loss. He was a strong leader, the perfect counterpart to his wife, but it had been his family that had given him that strength. Pluto could only stay strong because she knew her king needed her to be. He needed to mourn, and while they would have little time to do so, she vowed to give him as long as she could. Her ladies deserved no less.

The failure, and the shame of it, burned brightly in her chest. Pluto should have gotten to them more quickly, should have sensed what was wrong sooner, even if only by a few minutes. Seconds could have made all the difference. But she could not, and now everything was wrong because of her inability to do her duty.

Heart aching, she curled into her knees, hiding her mourning from the empty room.

xoxoxox

There was, of all things, a thread that led from her to a closet. It shimmered in the pale light of her room, shifting from a bright amber to a more rusted copper the closer it was to the door.

Usagi could not look in the closet. Of all the things she knew in the world, the one that screamed in the back of her mind was that she should not look in there. Even as it beckoned to her, making her fingers itch with curiosity, to open it would result in catastrophe.

"You...won't like it there." The small, familiar voice caused Usagi to spin around. Chibiusa was with her, shifting from Senshi to Princess, from school uniform to dress. The girl kept changing, features blurring and shifting ever so slightly, yet even when the girl looked nothing as she should, Usagi still knew her as Chibiusa.

"What's happening?" There was a feeling on the air. Loss and death swirled around her in a choking miasma, and if it weren't for the girl with her, she would have run.

Chibiusa suddenly leaped forward, wrapping her arms tightly around Usagi's waist. "Don't let him go. Don't let him be lost. You have to watch him!"

"Watch who? What are you talking about? What's wrong?" She tried to pull the sobbing girl away, to see her face. Then she could see, could know, what it was that frightened the child so much. But the grip around her middle grew stronger.

"Keep the truthful child safe."

Before Usagi could ask who her future daughter meant, the closet rattled and a loud bang echoed from the other side. Both jumped, and as Usagi stepped toward it to see what was behind there, something she would never do while awake, Chibiusa tugged her back. "No! You can't know what's there yet! Just watch over him!"

Usagi ignored the girl, drawn toward the door. Her hand reached for the handle as the pounding got louder. Gripping the knob, she pulled it back.

A weight landing on her legs caused Usagi to shriek as she flailed on her bed. Luna, who had just hopped through the window, yowled as she toppled off the mattress.

"Luna, you scared me!" Heart pounding in her chest, Usagi wondered if she would be able to sleep through the adrenaline rush. Her eyes were wide open, senses on alert, and she knew that there would be no sleeping for at least a half hour.

"I scared you?" Luna hopped on the bed, sitting on the edge as she glowered. "I'm the one who was thrown! I thought you were having a fit!"

Sighing, Usagi pulled her knees to her chest, propping her head up as she looked at the cat. The dream, or nightmare, was slowly fading away, but the urgency in Chibiusa's voice rang through her mind. "I'm sorry."

Luna padded over the covers toward the young teen, resting her paws beneath the girl's knees before pressing a small damp nose against the curve of a cheek. "Usagi, are you really okay?"

For one brief moment, the cat was sure that her charge, chewing her lower lip and wringing the hem of her pajamas as she could not make eye contact, would open up, would tell her what troubles had been plaguing the young girl for far too long. Then Usagi looked up, a mask of happiness and joy on her face. "I'm fine, Luna. It was just a weird dream, that's all. I barely even remember it."

Luna just stared at the girl, feline eyes glowing in the moonlight. Then she heaved a sigh and leaped onto the windowsill and back out into the night.

Usagi did not know why she just didn't tell people. They knew she missed Mamoru, that was perhaps so blatantly obvious that someone who didn't know her would guess. She would be fine with just missing him. It was the silence that was hurting the most. He had warned her that he probably couldn't answer back right away, but it had been so long since he'd left. But she wanted to be strong, for him and everyone else, because she needed to prove to people that she could do this and others had it so much more harder, even if it meant nights where she could barely hold onto her sanity.

The phone was at her ear before she realized it. Pressing redial, her breath held tight in her chest, a part of her wished that this time would be different. An illogical fantasy that she hardly acknowledged, where he just showed up one day. Surprise, Usako. Did you miss me? Sorry, a flock of carrier pigeons destroyed all of my information, and it was as though I was never accepted. Then I had to travel back by steam boats, so I couldn't exactly call you. You're not disappointed I'm home early, are you? Instead, she got the same emotionless message, asking her to leave her name and he would call her back, and she had to laugh at her own ridiculous daydream otherwise she'd break.

Which she couldn't do, because she was strong.

The door creaked open behind her. At first, she thought of her dream and believed that whatever had been in the closet there was now out to get her here. Spinning on her chair, she prepared herself for whatever would come.

Instead, Chibi-Chibi stood, tiny and afraid, in the doorway. It was becoming a habit with the young girl, but one that Usagi was not about to break. Especially tonight.

"Another nightmare?" The small girl nodded. "Come here."

The bed, still warm from when she woke earlier, cocooned them both. Usagi was able to fall asleep in a fog of the fresh clean scent of children and olives.

xoxoxox

There was no easy drift into consciousness. No gentle prodding on the rare day when he would wake up last, or silken strands of hair tickling his nose when he was not. One moment, Endymion was asleep and wrapped in the nightmare of memory, and the next he was staring at a stark wall with peeling paint.

Dressing was a process of muscle memory, and he glared at his fingers as they shook while buttoning his cuffs. He would have to get used to the fact that no one else would stand in front of him in the mornings, checking for invisible creases. He would no longer have to pretend to forget those last buttons, if only to feel her soft skin against his wrists as she did them, teasing that forgetfulness was a sign of old age.

Ignoring the shabbiness of the sparse room, he straightened his jacket and strode into the living area. Pluto was awake, busy at work wiping years of grunge from the kitchen sink. Despite the futility of the task, the surrounding counters and cupboards appeared cleaner than they had any right to be. He doubted she slept much at all through the night.

"Where are we?" The question he remembered from last night no longer carried the sound of confusion. It was harsh, more than he intended.

Pluto flinched, the closest she would come to jumping at the shock of his voice. "We are in a shack on Setsuna's property."

"Won't she notice we're here?"

Her pause mid scrub caught his attention. The suds beneath the scrubbing pad were brown and flecks of grime slithered over bubbles and into foam. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before quickly resuming her cleaning.

"Setsuna no longer exists in this time." The movements of her hand against the metal was slower, less hurried. "Without her dying in the future, the queen could not have had her reincarnated in the past to fight alongside Sailor Moon and the others. What you see around you are echoes of her existence. She was never here, technically, but people and places remember her. If she were to be completely removed, time would unbalance itself. Time...heals itself. Or tries to."

"How can you know for certain? Did you go out while I slept?"

Pluto shook her head. "Only to the main house to get clothes. I wasn't sure, not completely. But I found that folder." She gestured toward the table, and the pink file was thick with papers, and he could see crayon scribbles on some of the edges.

He didn't want to look, knowing what he would find, but Endymion was drawn to the table anyway. He opened the folder and had to look away as panic clawed through him, legs tingling with the urge to run. But he swallowed it down and forced himself to see what was there.

The top sheet was a crude drawing of Setsuna, after she had been reincarnated. He could tell it was her because of the green hair and red eyes, but that was about it. The caption at the top instructed the student to draw their best friend. Beneath the picture was the neater handwriting of his daughter, naming the person as 'Puu.'

Next was an illustration of Usagi, again only discernible by the yellow blobs on top of her head. Chibiusa had taken artistic license and had drawn fangs and demonic eyes, and apparently his daughter had feared a hungry Usagi.

"She got her artistic ability from her mother, I see."

Behind him was a strangled sound, and he preferred to believe it was her choking back a laugh.

"Would you like to keep those?"

The sheet below, still mostly hidden except for the instructions, told the young artist to draw her family. He straightened the pile and closed the folder without looking any further. "No. These are your memories, not mine."

Silence laid thick in the room, save for the wet scratching of the scouring pad against metal. Endymion knew he should feel some sort of relief that his daughter had not merely existed anywhere save his memories, but all that existed was the bittersweet taste of regret.

Though the folder now hid the drawings from his sight, his fingers still ran across bends and wrinkles, testament to how treasured the illustrations were to the senshi of time. For a stretch of time, the only sound was that of her furious scrubbing, the scratch of steel wool against metal grating on his ears and tearing his nerves.

"Can you do that another time?" Endymion's tone was sharp, and though he wished he had not snapped, the sudden pit of anger in his chest refused to allow an apology to escape.

The noise was replaced by a suffocating silence that only fueled his irritation. With a sharp pound of his cane, he turned toward the window to stare out at the bare tree in the yard. It looked half dead, the wiry branches stretching desperately toward the sun just out of reach behind taller buildings and an overcast sky.

"I have nothing that would fit you," Pluto said, breaking the silence and bringing him out of his mind. "I do not think it would be wise for you to wander...as you are now." Then, there was sound once again as she hurried from the table to the counter, busying herself with work. "I will go buy you a change of clothes, then if you wish you are welcome to come with to buy something more...appropriate."

She was coddling him, walking around his sharp edges with gentle feet. It annoyed him more than he wished to admit, and the desire to break something was strong.

Then she was gone, with words suggesting a warm bath or to sit in the yard, but he heard none of these. Instead, he sat at the table and stared at the folder. The only thing that saved it from being shredded was that it held the remaining traces of his daughter.

xoxoxox

The shopping trip was put on a short hiatus as Pluto entered the local library to do some minor research. Had Mamoru's absence been noticed by anyone? Though her resources were limited, the facility's computers were adequate to bypass the rudimentary security on the American school's computer system. Fifteen minutes later, she had a benign worm set up to locate any and all paperwork and email regarding the status of Mamoru.

Student Mamoru Chiba failed to arrive at his scheduled time. This phrase, and others like it, were common in what she discovered. With no next of kin listed, student's belongings have been placed in temporary storage.

After some more reading, Pluto found herself becoming increasingly annoyed. Apparently, though Usagi had been placed on his contact list in case of an emergency, the only contact on the list, no one had made the attempt at contacting someone who was 'just the girlfriend.' A few inquiries were made within the office, but apparently no one could be bothered to further investigate. Chiba was, to them, just another number on a long list of numbers, and one that was all too easily replaced.

Taking a moment to compose herself, she backtracked his would-be tracks to the airport. He had successfully checked aboard, but that was as far as his actual whereabouts went. No one cared for how many left the plane, so long as there were no bodies. However, there were two suitcases from that flight that was checked into the lost and found. Her king had always been a fastidious individual, and would have made absolute certain that his belongings were well within reach in a foreign environment. So that left the time of his disappearance sometime during the flight. There was no reports of a missing passenger, however, and without a list of who was on the flight, there was no way she could fill in the missing pieces. Acquiring the list would not be a problem, for the internet was full of erroneous information if one knew where to look. It was the people factor that made her pause. Who would know best, the person sitting beside him, or the flight attendant who offered cookies to a man who disappeared mid flight?

With a sigh, she printed off the list of passengers and flight attendants anyway. Nothing would likely come of it, but it would be something to do to keep her from going completely insane.

The contents of the list, and how to approach her king, kept her mind occupied as she browsed the local clothing store. Her patriarch was in a tremulous place, and she was afraid that one wrong move would send him spiraling some place that she would be unable to bring him back from. She had seen moods similar in him, and the only person to ever be able to bring him out of it had been his wife. The only time Pluto had feared for him had been during the attack of the dark moon kingdom, when his daughter was missing and his wife just barely out of death's reach. Add to that his injury, and many times she found herself disobeying the rules by leaving her post just to make certain he had not done anything any of them would later regret.

Absently, she placed her purchases down on the counter. The attendant raised an eyebrow at the unusual assortment of clothing; not so much that they were men's clothes, but that they obviously would not fit her slender frame. Barely bothering to glance up, Pluto said the first thing that came to mind to avoid any unwanted attention. "My boss had an incident with coffee. And he has a meeting this afternoon."

As she left, she wondered which king she would be faced with on her return. Would it be the lost little boy from the night before, or the angry man she left not long ago? Neither prospects were preferable, yet either were the only two she would face. Unless he had already progressed in the stages of grief, those two would be around for a good long while.

-End Chapter Two


	3. Misconceptions and Heartache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: I don't own them. I do not claim to know much about Japan or its culture. I was ten when we moved back to the states. Instead of believing that I am an inept monkey pounding on a keyboard, please take any and all inaccuracies as creative license. Also, I honestly like Seiya. While I do not agree with the pairing myself, I am an unabashed fan at unrequited love in any form. Also, I apologize for any characterization booboos. These are, for the most part, how characters come across to me. Oh, and still not betad. I have yet to lasso me one of those for this story.
> 
> This story is finished, and has been for a few years. I'm going to be trying to get all of it up here! If anyone notices glaring errors please let me know.

There was only so much of the same four walls in a day a man could take, especially those with as much peeling and disrepair as the ones he had been surrounded by. He kept to the shadows, pressing close against walls as he tried to find anything to take his mind away from his body. Pluto was asleep, having fallen into an exhausted slumber on the couch after she handed him the clothes he now wore and told him what she had found at the library.

It troubled Endymion, more than he would like to admit. Here he was, in a time he should not be, in a place he no longer existed in. He was technically dead, the only thing stopping time from catching up and rightfully wiping him out of existence was Pluto's sheer will to disobey the laws she had followed for countless millenia.

He had asked her, just before exhaustion finally claimed her, why then. Why did it have to be during a time when he was at his happiest. By all he knew of time, he simply should have ceased to exist. Her explanation, though probably full of the same logic he had clung to his whole life, made his head swim.

"Time," she had begun, pulling a rubber band from her pocket. "Is not as fixed as people think. You of all people should know that time can be changed. Some events, like a person leaving a building a few minutes earlier than they should, does not adversely affect time. Time will fix itself by causing another person to leave a few minutes later than they normally would. This person would speed just a little bit faster, and the person who left too early would have to dodge out of the intersection. The time it takes for that person to gather her things would make up for the minutes lost."

Endymion had opened his mouth to speak, brows already furrowed in confusion, when Pluto held up her hand. She then pulled the rubber band taught, and kept pulling as she spoke. "Some events, however, are too catastrophic for time to simply make up for. Your daughter already greatly messed with the infinite paths entwining your future when she came back the first time. More events were altered when she came back a second time. Fixed points were set along the path of time, in the past and in the future. So that the universe would not immediately collapse, time started to affect its flow at a point beyond where these events occurred."

The rubber band snapped, the two ends twisting in the air as it fell before the snapped against the middle. "Now, instead of immediately erasing itself, time is attempting to fix what has been broken. In this case, the death of Chiba. Perhaps we are here for that cause. Perhaps we are anomalies that managed to slip through the crumbling cracks. Either way, all around us time is being affected and it will fight until it either corrects itself or snaps under the pressure."

"But you said earlier that Setsuna was never technically here." He could not bring himself to speak his daughter's name, not then. And not after Pluto all but accused his child of causing the temporal mess in the first place. Though that was not how she intended it, he knew, it was how the ever rising irrational part of his brain chose to perceive it.

"She wasn't. Right now, there are echos of the other time line taped into place. Otherwise there would be gaping holes all around us."

Hours later, her explanation still made his head ache. He had wondered, as she finally drifted to sleep, if she had lacked the proper coherency to voice her thoughts clearly, or if his knowledge of time was truly as inept as he feared it to be.

Endymion was in the park before he realized he had entered it. Memories twirled in the air around him, of times before royal titles and events so dull and boring that even he faked sickness. He remembered, quite clearly, sitting on that bench beneath the tall oak countless times, just sitting beside a younger Serenity, his young Usako.

She was still here, alive, and without the knowledge of what had happened. He could imagine no other way than the one he knew. The way he remembered, he had spent countless hours rereading her letters when homesickness got to be too great. He would steal scant seconds to scribble a line or two down on his own letter during the endless lectures he attended. There was not a week he had not sent at least two letters, and often times when the work load was less than anticipated, he had to refrain from making multiple trips to the mailbox in one day. That was how he remembered his year abroad.

None of that happened and the Usagi of now was not his Serenity, just a possibility in his lady's life.

As though knowing he were thinking of her, Usagi materialized several yards away as she came in to view, giggling with her friends. Pressing himself against the tree, he watched her as she moved. She lacked all the grace and regality that a queen should have, something that would change somewhat over time, but the ever present love for life was still there. It hurt, a physical ache that clenched tight within his chest, just to look at her. As he stood from his vantage point, watching as she laughed one second and yelled at Mars the next, he could not help but wonder how none of them realized how much of an act it all was. The slight hesitation when she spoke, the dull of the normal shine in her eyes when she laughed at something Venus said, or the forced exuberance of her wail when Mercury likely suggested they do homework.

"Hey, Odango!" That voice, using an all too popular nickname that Endymion had first begun using several millenia ago, sent irritation flooding through his system. Already he hated the cocky swagger of the young teen sauntering up to the group. Their voices were soon lost, but clearly there was a sort of argument going on. There was something familiar about the younger man, even as the sheer alien quality of his appearance confused Endymion. Something was off about him, not quite right, and it sent his paranoia on high alert.

He wanted to go demand this young pursuer to stay away, but that meant talking to her, explaining why and how he was there. He could not bear the first, and the second would devastate her.

Besides, it was not as though she were his, anyway. She was just a fluke, an echo of what should not be. She was nothing.

He turned away then, deciding that he had enough adventure for one afternoon.

xoxoxox

"I saw her." Pluto did not need to ask who he meant when he walked through the door to see her awake. There was only one person today who could give her king a look that was both light and dark. He had seen a young queen.

"And? What did you do?"

His brow furrowed slightly as he took off his shoes and slipped his feet into a pair of slippers that were almost too small. "Nothing, what else could I do? Besides, she's not supposed to exist."

Tilting her head to one side, she set aside the piece of paper she had been reading. So far, two stewardesses and three passengers had no recollection of a Chiba Mamoru. "You sound as though you have a plan."

He nodded, crossing the floor to take his seat on a battered armchair across from her, looking very much like a rose in a rubbish heap. "We lay low, try to figure out what exactly happened, and when. Once you have regained your strength, we go back to when we're supposed to be and fix things."

Her king sounded so sure, so how he had sounded only days before disaster destroyed their world. Pluto knew that the odds were great that this would not end the way he wished. Time rarely ever made a mistake, and she knew they were brought to the here and now for a reason. Or a possibility. Still, this was her king, and she would do as he commanded, or die trying.

xoxoxox

The second time in one day, Endymion found himself out in the world. This time it was for food, an unfortunate necessary staple in life. Had he a choice, they would have lasted the rest of the day on the stale crackers found in the cupboards, but neither of their stomachs agreed with his utilitarian decision.

"Setsuna!"

Endymion knew they shouldn't have gone to the store that day. They could have lived another night on stale crackers. "Pretend you're not you," he hissed at her, hurrying them both along and trying to reach the safety of their shelter just a few blocks away.

Haruka was fast, though, and was on them in moments. "Hey, where you off to in such a... hurry..." He could feel Uranus' eyes on him, heavy and accusing. "I thought you were in America."

His eyes coldly met hers, and he could see the recognition in hers.

"King-"

"There's nothing to be king of anymore, Uranus."

Michiru approached slowly, catching their conversation. "I thought that they couldn't exist in the same time for very long, that their crystals made it impossible." She turned her head toward him, and he focused on her, missing the widening of Haruka's eyes. "It is why you were unable to visit your daughter."

Daughter.He fought back the ache the word caused and gave her a curt nod.

Setsuna answered before he could. "There was a temporal delay. I managed to get the king here safely. This was the only place where we could go. Mamoru never made it to his destination."

The gasp behind him, along with Haruka's shocked expression, let Endymion know that the one person he would rather not know about his being here had heard enough.

"Kitten," Haruka said in a whisper, moving toward her princess. Michiru placed a restraining hand on the other woman's elbow.

Endymion turned to see her standing there, the replacement, the fluke, the one that should not be. And yet, her eyes were as wide as he remembered, just before she cried. Not the loud wails of crocodile tears that would quickly dry, but his own slow fall into perdition as he could only stand by and watch this unbearable pain in her escape the only way it could. It was rare, it hurt just as sharply each time, and like now, it was usually the result of him.

"Sere-" Too late, he cut off his voice as the last vestige of hope shattered in her.

A sharp hitch was his only warning at what came. There was no loud wail, no exuberant display to tell people that she was crying. Instead, it was as though she could not breathe, stuck between an inhale and a scream. Her tears came as though they had always been, and Endymion felt jealous of her ability to mourn so openly. She doubled over, clutching around her middle as she pitched forward. Instinctively, Endymion was there, catching her before she fell.

Then his axis shifted so sharply that he nearly lost his footing. She was not the anomaly, something that should not be. It was he who was the erroneous entity in this universe. She pushed at him even as she tugged him closer, and the feel of her so very alive in his arms broke all resolve he had. She was his Usako, but she was not his. She belonged to a man who was already dead. As he held this young girl, breathily sobbing a dead man's name over and over, his mind firmly set on one goal. He would do anything to fix her world, to make it better. While he was not her Mamoru, he was still hers.

He turned sharply to Pluto. "Forget our previous plans, we're fixing this. I don't care what we have to do." He would stay, here, to help her. No matter the cost.

Endymion expected an argument from the senshi of time, but she merely nodded, grim determination in her eyes.

xoxoxox

Haruka did not like where this was going one bit. That her princess' prince was no longer alive was bad enough, but to be forced to endure looking at someone who was but was not him must be excruciating for the young girl. She knew without a doubt that if she were in the same situation, if something were to happen to Michiru and she stumbled across this...this...doppelganger, there was no way she could keep hold of her sanity. How Usagi was supposed to move on from something this cruel was beyond her.

"And just what, your majesty, do you intend to do?" She demanded, fist balled tight. "There's nothing you can do here to just magically make things better. Your being here is just messing everything up even worse!"

He had no answer, just idly stroked her princess in soothing circles against her arm. The sight of his hands on Usagi infuriated Haruka, and she wished to call forth all the powers of her planet to blast this man away from her.

"There is currently no course of action that is evident," Setsuna intoned, avoiding the scene behind her. "However-"

"Hold just a moment, Setsuna. Just why are you so casual about this?" Never had she wished to take back a demand for an explanation before. After Setsuna – no, Pluto – finished her tale of what had happened in a lost future, she wished for the ignorance of a few seconds ago.

She wanted to lash out at the both of them, especially this man who was supposed to be a king, to watch his passive face, which had not changed once during Pluto's recount, show some sort of emotion. "And what did you do while your wife and child died? Saved your own sorry ass?" It was petulant, it was stupid, and she did not need to look to know that Michiru was leveling a disapproving glare her way. Even the flare of emotion in Endymion's face was a hollow victory, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She was just so mad that she could do nothing about this, and he was by far the easiest of targets.

Michiru bumped her shoulder as she passed, a calm sea in this chaotic storm. Closing her eyes, Haruka turned to the side, struggling to still her tongue before she said anything else she would later regret.

"You know Haruka is volatile when angry," she heard her companion speak to the king in a soft, soothing tone. "We both know that you would do no such thing."

It was not Endymion who responded, but Pluto. "I believe we should gather later to decide what we are going to do."

"We could take Usagi with us. Our place is not too far from here. Haruka." She knew that tone, when used on her. Haruka knew she would get an earful later. But she also knew what Michiru wanted.

Avoiding all eyes except for the still crying girl, Haruka bent down and gently pried those tiny fingers from Endymion's shirt. "Come on, Kitten. Let's get you home."

Usagi was unresponsive, neither resisting or aiding Haruka in her attempts. She simply stared ahead with unseeing eyes, mumbling to herself. After a moment of struggle, Haruka managed to hoist the girl up. It was more awkward this way, and piggy back would have been more practical, but holding the young girl as an adult would a tired child, she almost felt like a decent human being instead of the insensitive ass she had been. Without waiting, she headed for the apartment, leaving the farewells and apologies to Michiru.

"I'm sorry," she said as her girlfriend caught up to them.

"I know." That was it. No yelling, no fights. She knew one would likely come later, but to lose that, to lose this, would be to lose herself. Her arms tightened on the catatonic girl.

"What do we do, when she's...herself again?" Michiru was the one better suited for emotional stuff. Haruka merely beat the crap out of whatever upset someone she cared about.

"We do as we normally do. We be there for her."

The rest of the trip was made in silence. Haruka honestly did not know how she would handle the situation when Usagi woke up. How could she just be there, doing nothing, when she knew how much pain the young girl was going through? And how would she handle the false cheer that the stupid considerate girl would likely try to pull off?

Michuru unlocked their door, and Haruka deposited the sleeping girl onto the couch.

"I'm going to go pick up dinner." Oh yeah. Before, they had ordered food, prepared to treat an energetic Usagi to a good meal. Now, it seemed as though comfort food was on the menu.

"Pick up something sweet for her, okay? And make sure they remembered her extra order of rice." Tugging a blanket from the hall closet, she draped it over her kitten. She felt a very familiar pair of lips press softly against her cheek. Confused, but not exactly one to complain about something like that, she looked up at Michiru. "What was that for?"

She was rewarded with a blinding smile. "Nothing. I'll be back soon."

xoxoxox

Usagi woke on a familiar couch. She somehow managed to end up in Haruka and Michiru's apartment, a cold compress on her forehead.

"You're finally up, Kitten." Haruka sat perched against the arm of a chair, arms folded as she regarded the young princess with careful calculation. "How do you feel?"

Sitting up took a feat of strength. Her head felt fuzzy and heavy and icky, and all she wanted to do was curl back in a ball and sleep the day away. Her chest ached, too, but the reason why eluded her. "I...what am I doing here?"

The tall woman arched an eyebrow. "What all do you remember?"

"I was coming to meet you guys," she started, then paused as she struggled to remember the rest. "And...I woke up here." The ache in her chest intensified, and she knew there was something she could was not remembering. Something important, but it had faded like the vestiges of a night mare. Tears streaked down her cheeks, tickling her skin with new wetness. "Why am I crying? I'm fine, I..."

Haruka jerked to action, leaving her perch to sit beside Usagi. A strong yet feminine hand made wide circled on her back. "You're fine, you...fainted. Michiru thinks its from low blood sugar. We brought you here because it was the closest place. It's gonna be just fine, I promise."

Usagi burrowed against Haruka's shoulder, who tensed in response but did not pull away. Her heart was breaking, and she did not know why. "Can I stay here? Just for a little bit?"

Giving in to the inevitable, Haruka accepted her role as a comforter. "Of course, you idiot. We're still having dinner. Because of your blood sugar. Don't want to send you out only to have you faint again, now do we?"

Usagi was so confused with what she was feeling and not remembering, and the comforting warmth of her friend, that she did not notice the uncharacteristic rambling.

End Chapter Three


	4. Ephemeral Memory

Her king had not been in a good mood when she dropped him off. Then again, a good mood for him was a relative term these days. She worried, not just for what he could or would do in his grief, but also for the strange feeling coming from him. It was miniscule, but even some blocks away she felt something within him slowly decay.

Pluto was, for all intents and purposes, trying her best to find out what happened and why. Before, it was difficult as she would not risk facing someone from their past and ruining things even further. However, now it was too late, and she may as well enlist the help of the other outer senshi.

The good thing, as well as the bad in many cases, about being the guardian of time was her inability to forget. She had a wealth of knowledge stored in her mind, all ready to be called forth at a moment's notice. So finding where they lived took very little remembering. With a careful knock on their door, she waited until the door opened and she was greeted by the gentle waves of Neptune's wavy hair and kind eyes.

"May we talk?" She asked.

Neptune glanced behind her for a moment. "Haruka, I'm going into the hall. Don't let Usagi eat herself to death on the buns." Then she stepped into the hall, closing the door quietly behind her. "She doesn't remember."

Pluto blinked. "How do you mean?"

Lines creased between the younger woman's eyebrows as an unfamiliar scowl settled over her features. "She awoke while I was out getting the food. Haruka told her she merely fainted, and that's why she's here."

Feeling her heart sing to her toes, Pluto leaned against the wall for support. "Didn't she realize how hard it would be to tell her the truth later on?"

"Do we have to?" The shorter woman's eyes traced the patterns stitched in the threadbare carpet. "You saw how she reacted. She may not be your Usagi, but you can't tell me it wouldn't break your heart to have to witness that again."

"She is always my lady, no matter the time," Pluto stated, caught in an unusual paradox of desperately missing her monarch and the young princess, and vehement on protecting the future queen of today. "And what if she were to remember on her own? What then? It would be better for us to tell her. The betrayal she would feel at discovering that we knew would only exasperate her emotional trauma."

"If there is nothing to be done, I promise I will tell her myself. But isn't there something you can do?"

Pluto sighed. "Take me to her."

xoxoxox

Usagi was not going to complain at the mountain of food before her. She was not going to wonder at the worried glances her friends sent her way. Instead, she was going to ignore the unusual heaviness beneath her ribcage and eat until she couldn't move.

Haruka was just sitting there, staring with an unidentifiable expression, her own plate having been barely picked through. Worrying her lip, Usagi studies the two remaining sweet buns in front of her. She could do this. After all, it was just one.

"Hey, Haruka," the taller girl jumped to alert at the sound of her name, instantly leveling piercing eyes on Usagi. The diminutive girl gulped, but still held out the bun. "Did you want one?"

Relaxing, Uranus gave a soft smile. "No, Kitten. We bought them for you."

Enthusiastically, Usagi bit into the bun that was hers and hers alone. What ever she did to deserve such wonderful friends, she hoped she doing it.

The front door opened, and both turned to see Michiru enter with someone who made Usagi's eyes widen in pleasant surprise. "Setsuna!" Eyeballing the now truly last bun, she sighed. Picking it up, she held it out. "Did you want one?"

Setsuna faltered for a moment, her mouth working around something. Then she cleared her throat and smiled warmly. "Thank you, but no. How have you been?"

"Apparently I should stop missing breakfast and forgetting my lunch at home! Did you know I fainted?" She still could not believe it. This was not the first time that she had not eaten in a good long while, but the first where it caused her to black out.

"I was just informed. Perhaps you should start carrying an emergency candy bar."

Usagi drooped, fiddling with her remaining bun. "I can't. I'd eat it when it wasn't an emergency."

There was a small strangled sound, but before the girl could wonder where it came from, she was wrapped tightly in a pair of strong arms. Not that she minded, because hugs were awesome, but Setsuna rarely displayed physical displays of affection. Suddenly drowsy, she leaned into the embrace as her eyes drifted half shut. She was aware of nothing and everything, and her mind kept drifting back, as always, to Mamoru.

Setsuna finally pulled away with a weak smile and tired eyes before turning away. Usagi shook herself, wondering at the lethargic feeling that seeped through her skin and down to the bones.

"Hey, Kitten. If you like, we can call your mom and let her know you're gonna stay the night."

Usagi mumbled reply was so incoherent that she wasn't even sure what she meant as she slumped down to rest her head in the crook of her elbows.

xoxoxox

In a place where dreams found sanctuary, a young man stood at the cusp of the forest. He closed his eyes and tilted his face to the winds, trying to find the familiar pull he had become so accustomed to in so short a time. It was not there, had not been there for far too many weeks, and his heart felt adrift, buffeted around in the howling gales of a tsunami.

Widening his senses, he strained for the familiarity of others, but those to eluded his grasp. Straining now, desperate to never be alone again, he stretched his abilities even further. Silence greeted him until the last, when a tiny glimmer of recognition filtered through.

It was his king, the man to whom Helios owed his existence. For, without the guardian of the earth, he would have had no purpose, and would have ceased to exist long ago. Something was not right, though. The connection, which should have been immediate, was weak and unstable, breaking in and out. Desperate, he strained against the boundaries of dreams.

Please, my lord, he silently begged, please show me your dreams.

Within minutes he forcibly broke the connection, tears in his eyes as he implored with the crystal that what he saw was not true.

His maiden could not be gone.

xoxoxox

"What did you do to her?" Haruka demanded as they entered the bedroom. "One minute she's fine, and the next she can't keep her eyes open."

"I checked the flow of times around her. It is not something I can do often. Perhaps not again, not without irreversible consequences." Pluto leaned heavily against the wall. The door was closed, and Usagi slept deeply in the other room, yet still their voices were barely above a whisper. "I have seen many possibilities, and none of them end well,"

"Are we going to tell her, then? Is that the best course of action to take?" Haruka refused to believe it, even if Setsuna decided it was the right option.

Fortunately for the angry woman's sanity, the senshi of time gave a slow and grim shake of her head. "Not once did I encounter her remembering on her own, yet I have seen her rediscover the truth countless times. In some, it is another chance meeting in the street. In others, she overhears you and Neptune arguing through a door. Still others she just happens to stumble across the truth, or one of us tells her what happened. In all of these, it takes her too long to recover from the shock. And in many cases, the betrayal of our silence."

"So we do tell her, then." Michiru's soft voice hesitated on her words, and Haruka knew that her girlfriend would place it on her own shoulders to tell their princess what neither wanted. Just so that Haruka would not have to.

"There were some strands that were not clear to me. There is something poised to happen, and I believe we must wait for it to occur before we decide what we are to do." Pluto took a step away from the wall, swaying slightly before forcing her spine straight. "Until then, perhaps you could tell me what had happened to Chiba Mamoru."

"How should we know? We haven't seen him since before he and Kitten left for the airport." Haruka grumbled. She had wanted to follow, to make sure that Chiba behaved his male urges, but Michiru had stopped her at the door. Let them have this time.

"What is it that is going on now? I can feel the disturbance, yet I do not know anything of this enemy." Shaking her head slightly, Setsuna took a step forward, her strength returning. "Whatever this is is not something that has happened before."

"We're not exactly sure what the enemy is after. All we know is that for some reason they are after people's star seeds."

Pluto's eyes widened, horror and shock both on her face. "Star seeds? I know of no one with the ability to harvest those."

xoxoxox

The soft light of the crescent moon gave the room an eery glow as shadows danced along the wall. Leaves and twigs sprawled toward the harsh contours of the iron fence, giving the patterns a crisscross of both modern and post modern art. Endymion, though his eyes were trained on a shadow that looked like a mutilated rabbit, saw none of this.

Haruka's words echoed in his skull. Now, after some time had passed, he wondered if he had truly done all that he could, or if he had allowed his own fear at death to override the need to save his family.

He wanted to say no, knew that was the answer. He had faced death more times than he could remember, and each time held the steely determination to die for first Serenity, then Small Lady. Still, there was now that seed of doubt that planted itself firmly in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more that doubt grew.

A bright light pierced the wall. On alert, he reached for the only weapon he had on hand. The lamp was bulky and ineffective, but it was all he could reach. Endymion lowered it as he saw who emerged, head tilting to one side as he spoke the visitor's name. They had never met, but there was no mistaking who the boy was, especially since he held the golden crystal.

"The crystal has heard your plea, Lord Endymion." Helios glided across the floor to stand at the foot of the bed, his ethereal glow warring with the beams of moonlight. "I regret it took this long for us to hear you. You are not who you should be."

Endymion set the lamp back where it had been. "Which plea would that be? I have had many lately."

"Your desire to fix things here and now is the one that speaks the loudest, my lord. It is also the only one that the crystal can assist with." The ageless boy appeared young and lost as his head lowered to one side. "It cannot fix a future that will never happen."

His fists gripped the thin sheet on the mattress as Endymion lowered his head. "So it is impossible, then. To get them back."

There was a pause before Helios answered, then his words were slow and steady, thought out and collected. "On this path, your time can never be exactly as it was."

"The other path, though." To go back to the moment when things changed, when Mamoru died. "That could fix things."

Helios' face grew desperate as he struggled for an answer. "I-I don't-I can't-I am not very learned of the intricate entanglement of time."

Endymion sighed as his shoulders slumped. "You can help with the here and now though, right? Why? You usually do not interfere with the waking world." Unless, of course, it involved a certain girl. A moment later, Helios confirmed the king's suspicions.

"I am afraid to admit it is not just for you I am doing this for. I wish to see my maiden once more," he admitted. "I can no longer hear her call, feel her dreams, here or in the future. It is lonely."

"It is," he agreed, voice course. Clearing his throat, he straightened his shirt. "So, will the crystal help me protect Usagi?"

"I believe so. It is calling for action, and knows more than I. However, I do not believe that we have much time for you decide whether or not to go through with this." The boy shifted as urgency filtered through his movements. "You must decide now, Lord Endymion. The longer we wait, the more your connection to the crystal fades."

"How can the connection be fading?"

"I do not know. Perhaps it is that you do not belong here, and the crystal senses this." Even as he spoke, Endymion knew Helios was right. The link that he had been able to feel with the crystal for many years was not as strong as it had been in the future.

"What is it exactly the crystal will do to me?" He had already made up his mind, despite his question. He could not stand to see Usagi, in any form, in so much pain. And to follow his original plan would mean destroying her, and this time. Pluto was right, they had been sent to the here and now for a reason. If not, then it was too late to turn away anyway.

"That is for the crystal to decide." Helios lifted the crystal between them as his voice grew heavy with sorrow and guilt. "I am sorry, Lord Endymion."

"What for?"

"This is going to hurt," he replied, moments after Endymion grasped the golden crystal. "A lot."

The effects were immediate. Molten heat seared up his arm, striking every nerve, cell, lodging deep into the marrow of his bones, spreading quickly and without mercy throughout his body. He would have screamed had his lungs not seized up from the terrible constriction in his chest, blocking the flow of air and blood through the rest of his body.

xoxoxox

Night had fallen while she had spoken with the other two outer senshi. The moon hung high in the sky, a small sliver of what it was shining down. While she had no irrefutable proof, Pluto now had an idea as to what had happened to Mamoru. As the earth's protector, she knew he would have the earth's star seed. It would be logical to assume that whatever enemy they faced would go for the strongest first.

Arriving at Setsuna's house, she navigated through the gate and the small yard to the shack. She wondered if Endymion was sleeping, and hoped he had pleasant dreams.

However, when she opened the door, she heard a shout from the bedroom followed by the sound of a body falling to the ground.

Panic fueled her speed as she raced across the small room, not stopping until she reached the bedroom only to find Endymion was on the floor, a tangled heap of clothing and blankets. He was not moving, but she could hear the ragged breathing fill the musty air.

"My lord?" The pile moved as Endymion struggled to get up, cloth rustling with the force of his quaking limbs. "Do you require assistance?"

"No," he grunted through clenched teeth, voice high with strain of his efforts. Pluto stood back, trying not to allow her concern outweigh her king's pride.

Finally, somehow, he managed to straighten into a kneeling position. Pluto gasped at the sight of him, unable to speak as he stood. He clutched loose pants around his waist as his dress shirt swallowed his slight frame. He started when he looked at her, no longer having to glance down. Instead his chin had to tilt a fraction of an inch to meet her eyes.

Her king, several centuries old, was now trapped in a body caught between adolescence and adulthood.

"So this is what Helios meant," he said in a voice half an octave higher than normal. Though she knew who he was, it was only because she knew that was who he was supposed to be. With the height difference, softer face, and the change in his voice, it would be near impossible for anyone to guess exactly who he was.

-End Chapter Four


	5. Growing Pains

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Haruka asked, not for the first time, as she peered at her over the rim of her sunglasses at Usagi. The young girl grabbed the leftovers from last night's dinner out of the front seat. Her Kitten had slept all through the night, not stirring until Michiru began her turn making breakfast.

The short girl gave a blinding smile. "Yes! I promised Mama I'd watch Chibi-Chibi today, and I was actually supposed to be home an hour ago."

The front door opened to reveal an intimidating Tsukino Ikuko putting on her last earring. "Usagi! You're late!"

"Sorry, Mama! Michiru made breakfast, and it would've been rude to leave!" With a wave, Usagi raced up the sidewalk.

"Uh huh, sure. And I suppose you'll be wanting the breakfast I made as well." She smiled warmly at the car. "Thank you for taking care of my daughter!"

"But Mama, your food is so good!" That was the last Haruka heard as the front door closed.

Michiru slid from the back seat to the front, still graceful despite the awkward climb. "She will get suspicious if we keep spoiling her."

Haruka put the car in drive then left the cozy family home and toward their destination. "She rarely gets to come over. She may just think it's because of that."

Before Usagi had woken up Pluto called, more reserved than usual, and requested that as soon as they were able they come by her house. Haruka made good time, only breaking a few speeding laws despite the urgency she felt. There was a change in the air, both she and Michiru could taste it. Reaching the house, they made their way to the back of the house as they had been instructed to do.

"Hey, Setsuna," Haruka called as they entered the dilapidated entry way. "What was it you wanted to see us about?"

"Please, come in," Pluto said, holding a tray in her hands. "I have prepared some tea. I apologize for the poor accommodations, however, I do not yet feel comfortable intruding on someone else's home."

Michiru took the lead and, donning a pair of slippers, entered the small living area. Endymion was no where to be seen, but the sounds of rustling came from the next room. Haruka took a seat beside Michiru and accepted the cup of tea she was offered.

"The strand we have been waiting for has occurred." Long delicate fingers closed around a small cup, steam billowing from its wide mouth. "As it stands, we do not need to tell the princess anything."

An intense wave of relief swept through Haruka as the tension she had been unaware of leaked from her body. "What happened?"

Instead of answering, Pluto turned toward the bedroom door. "Perhaps I am not the one who should be explaining." A short boy within the years of puberty emerged from the bedroom.

The boy adjusted the collar of his shirt as he took a seat beside Pluto. "Helios happened."

Haruka tensed, ready for answers from the stranger and not riddles. "I ask again, what happened? And who the hell are you?"

The boy sighed as he picked up his own cup, the fifth in the set sitting unused. "I had a visitor last night." As he explained about the boy who was the Pegasus, and the crystal, Haruka recognized the realization dawning on Michiru even as the answer eluded the taller woman. Finally, the boy set his cup down. "And I am Endymion. Or, rather, a young Chiba Mamoru, depending on your perspective."

Haruka stared at the young man. Until he mentioned it, she had not noticed the similar features or the how the hair would be be exactly the same if he brushed it just so. Now it was obvious, as were the same eyes of a haunted man she had seen the previous day.

"You've got to be kidding me."

xoxoxox

In a display rare for her, Usagi touched very little of her second breakfast. Truth was, what she ate at Haruka and Michiru's had settled heavy in her stomach. Her dreams had been so sad and heartbreaking that while she could not remember it all when she woke, she knew that it had something to do with her Mamo-chan and that made food taste like ash in her mouth.

Her mother and father had left not long after she got home, and Shingo was spending the weekend at a friend's for the weekend. So it was just Chibi-Chibi and herself, and the small child was busy at work creating a masterpiece out of crayons, paperclips, and glue. While she had a free moment, Usagi scribbled some lines on a piece of paper to collect her thoughts, hoping that this would be the letter to warrant a response.

"How does this sound, Chibi-Chibi? 'I had a bad dream about you last night, and it made me worry. Are you doing okay?'" Chewing on the tip of her pen, she swung her legs to lay back on the couch. The new angle gave no answer to whether or not she should keep the line in or not.

"Chibi." The puerile voice sounded closer than expected. Sticky fingers painted gluey nondescript patterns on Usagi's bare leg before slapping down on the carefully worded letter.

"Chibi-Chibi!" Jerking up, she tried to see if her hard work could be salvaged, her efforts only making the mess worse. Exhaling slowly, she leaned her head back against the fluffy pillows of the couch. "You're right. It sounded like I was demanding answers. He's probably very busy right now, so I should just let him know I am fine." Which she was, mostly. "And that I love him." Which she did, desperately.

"Chibi!" Messy little hands reached up for Usagi as the small child silently asked for attention.

Figuring she was now due for another shower, Usagi lifted the light girl off the ground and cuddled the attention seeker close. "What do you think? Want to get washed up and go out for a little bit?"

It would do her some good to get out of the house and into the open where she could think, or not think, as the exuberance of someone so young kept her occupied.

There were times, like now, when the young child in her arms made her miss Chibi-Usa. Even the pink haired girl's never ending supply of insults would be music to Usagi's ears. She briefly wondered how the girl was doing, what she was doing, and if any of the future royal family gave her half as much thought as she did them.

"Chibi!" Eagerness for outside adventure shown bright on Chibi-Chibi's round face. The effect was nearly contagious as Usagi found herself smiling in return.

"Go get your clothes," she told the young girl, knowing that she would have to follow not too far behind to make sure essential undergarments were chosen as well.

Before that, though, she pulled out a crisp piece of paper and dated it at the top. "My dear Mamo-chan,' she started, her words large and blocky. 'I am doing well, and I love you.'

The important part of the message written, with first a half-lie and then the truth, she set the paper down on the coffee table. She could finish it when she got home and have it ready for the next day's post. Along with the letter she would write just before school started.

"Come on, Chibi-Chibi! Lets go get you cleaned up."

xoxoxox

There were times in his life when he wished to have attention away from him. Girls in school, before and after he had found Usako, was a prime example of this desire. He was never one to bask in the attention of others. It was, in part, why he'd had no qualms with his wife being the figurehead for their people. It was why he would vanish so suddenly after throwing a rose and a line or two that would be forgotten the next day.

Having three intimidating female figures scrutinizing his every move in the cramped confines of a bathroom was not how he would describe his idea of a good time.

"I must admit. I never expected you were ever so..." Neptune trailed off as she stood behind the king, looking down at his reflection.

"Tiny? Pluto, isn't this a bit overboard?" Uranus hovered in the doorway, looking at none of them while her arms folded in front of her.

"I was going to say diminutive."

"And that's supposed to be less insulting?"

The face in the cracked bathroom mirror revealed him as he remembered being at the age of sixteen, just before his last major growth spurt struck. "I'm neither short nor diminutive. I happen to be about an average height. Well, more average than you two." Pluto and Uranus, both tall for men let alone women, pierced him with a glare.

"I say you look more adorable," Neptune rest her hands on his shoulder, chin pressing against his temple. "And people will never suspect a sixteen year old boy to be a king who has ruled for over a thousand years."

"Or a dead man who's supposed to be in America."

Neptune turned to Uranus, and then walked toward her. Endymion watched their reflection. The hushed voices, the softening in Uranus' eye, the overall intimacy of the scene made him feel as though he were an unwelcome intruder and sent a sharp pang of jealousy through his chest.

"As you know, there may be unforeseen consequences of this, my lord." Pluto spoke from beside him, haggard and spent, having spent the majority of the previous night going over his recount of what happened and trying to see the possible outcomes.

"I know. But this may be the only way to help her." Looking at his body, though, he wondered just what use he could be like this. He had almost forgotten how scrawny he had been before the growth spurts. "Somehow."

"I am aware of the lengths you would go for your wife. But you do realize she is not, right? Not yet, not here." She took a step forward, bringing a gloved hand up to trace his youthful reflection. "You may not even survive this."

"No matter the point in time, or what happened to change things, Usagi is the girl I fell in love with. She will become the queen she was meant to be, and I will make sure I am there for her when she is. Even if it is not as me."

"You don't mean to take his place?"

Endymion furrowed his brows, turning up to meet her shocked expression. "Of course I don't. Usagi fell in love with Mamoru. I am no longer him. It's he that she needs. I merely meant that I would find a way to bring him back."

"You...promise you'll take care of yourself. You're all I have left."

"I know." His gaze intensified on her then as he leaned forward, intent that she heard what he said next. "Just as I know that you did everything that was in your power to do otherwise."

Pluto's eyes widened, and there was a crack, exhaustion making it possible for unwanted emotion to sneak through. "I-But I couldn't-"

"Go get some rest. I'll try to get accustomed to being...this."

The woman nodded and left the room as quick as she could.

He left the mirror, tightening the belt on the slacks. Pluto had gone out early to buy yet another set of clothing for him, and even the new outfit was just a hair too long and a tad too loose. He then left his small bedroom and returned to the living room, where Uranus and Neptune stood by the door.

"You know, King, you're going to need to learn to walk all over again. You look like you're not quite used to the size of your legs yet." Uranus leaned against the wall.

"What do you propose?"

xoxoxox

The arcade temporarily closed for a staff meeting, and without having any other place sound good to eat, Usagi walked down the sidewalk until time came when they could get lunch at her favorite spot. Chibi-Chibi played the ends of her long hair, which proved to be more effective than one of those leashes she had seen on some kids.

"Did you want to go there instead?" She pointed to a cafe across the street. The young child looked over, face scrunching up as she shook her head. Usagi giggled at the reaction. "So you want to wait until they reopen the arcade?"

"Arcade?"

"You're right, I prefer their milkshakes anyway." Her stomach was letting her know it was over the dream as it growled.

A sharp tug on her hair nearly had her falling as the young girl suddenly stopped moving. "Ow! What's wrong?"

Chibi-Chibi stared off in the direction of the park, her eyes wide. With an excited clap, she squealed as she dropped the strand of hair she'd been holding as she dashed through traffic and crowds.

A shriek escaped Usagi as she raced after the young girl, calling her name and barely dodging angry motorists.

xoxoxox

The smaller limbs, the different perspective on the world, being slightly less than a foot lower, made the trek through the park a more perilous adventure than it should have been. Curbs became his enemy, steps deceptive in their height, and if Uranus had not been there to grab onto his arm whenever he tripped, Endymion would have been one walking bruise within the first five minutes.

"This is utterly ridiculous," he growled, the sound so much higher in pitch than he was used to.

"Relax. You'll get used to it in a few days."

"Walking shouldn't be so hazardous. The difference a few inches makes, and how it affects one's center of balance is astounding." Another curb tried to kill him and once again a strong hand on his arm saved him from breaking his tail bone.

"Now you know why I hate heels."

They reached the path and safer ground, so he had nothing more to focus on aside from his own thoughts. "Do you think the crystal was right to do this?" It was something that had been bothering him since the pain faded. To be here, like this, did not offer much in the way of protecting Usagi. At least not physically. The only upside he could see was the possibility that the girl would not recognize them should they run into each other again. Another meeting like the one yesterday would shred the remainder of his sanity.

"There are so many things about this that's wrong." Uranus' tone was suddenly harsh, bitter, and Endymion fell silent under the obvious resentment. He was no fool. He knew that the tall senshi had always preferred the queen, always been loyal to her. It was only the fact that his wife had loved him as desperately as he still did her that his presence had been tolerated. "I hate that I have to lie to her, and I hate that telling her the truth would hurt her more than anything else."

Endymion shook his head as he shoved his small hands into his pockets. "So do I."

"You're not even him! You're not supposed to be here!" This time, her grip on his arm was not to steady, but to force him to a stop while she glared down at him. "What gives you the right to come here and mess everything up?"

Endymion clenched his fist down at his side. He remembered this time. Mamoru was supposed to be alive, in America, and trying to fight off the inevitable homesickness that came when he checked his mail. He was supposed to be spending stolen moments in class during lulls in the lecture to jot down a few lines on stationary she had bought him. Her letters should be getting him through the hours between classes, and he would settle for a couple nights of eating nothing but disgusting Americanized ramen and sandwiches just to hear her voice for an hour. That was how it was supposed to be. That's how it was.

His chin thrust up, Endymion stepped as close as he dared, glaring up at her with all the anger he felt. "And what gave her the right to save just me? He died, and I should have followed, but instead of going with my family, I am stuck here." There was a tug on his arm, small and insignificant, but it was quickly shoved aside as everything he had tried not to feel came winding its way up and out.

Uranus opened her mouth to respond to his outburst. She clearly had not expected his thinly veiled admission. "You didn't want to be rescued."

"Not if it meant losing them." His throat ached, muscles shaking with the effort needed to keep from lashing out or breaking down. He was not sure which he would do. "I was supposed to die with them! It's where I should have been!"

He would have chosen lashing out, striking Uranus for just being there when Serenity was not, but when his fist pulled back he felt a tiny weight hold him down as a small whimper echoed in his ear. Jerking his eyes toward the source of the noise, he stopped at what he saw. For a brief moment, through the confusion of his mind, he saw someone he should not have. "Small Lady?" Then he blinked, and the picture cleared. While familiar, the small child was not his daughter.

"Chibi?" Her voice quivered in a way he knew very well. Memories of a scared little girl afraid of thunderstorms and the dark clouded his mind.

Kneeling down, he calmed his nerves as he tried to come across as a benign entity. "Did I scare you?" Her large eyes stared up at him with hurt as she nodded. "I'm sorry. Are you lost?"

Her tiny palm patted his cheek. "Chibi?"

"I'm feeling better now, thank you." He took her little hand, wrapping it loosely in his comparatively larger one. "What's your name?"

The child tilted her head down, shyly glancing up at him through long eyelashes as her frown was replaced by a tiny smile. "Chibi-Chibi." Then the girl brought her hands behind her back, lightly scraping one shoe on the trail.

Endymion was powerless to stop the small smile at the young girl. "Do you need help finding your family?"

Unexpectedly, the girl's eyes got as impossibly wide as her sudden grin. "Chibi!" The next thing he knew, she threw her arms around his neck and clung, snuggling against his shoulder. "Chibi."

Familiarity swept through him at the contact. Stunned, he stood holding the girl.

"Chibi-Chibi!" Both turned at the voice down the trail. Though he knew it would come eventually, Endymion was not quite prepared to meet her yet, not in this form. It was awkward and clumsy, and while those were good covers for his normally measured strides, it just was not something he wished others to see.

"Kitten!" Uranus' voice was affectionate as she called to her, lifting a hand in greeting. "Didn't I just drop you off?"

"Haruka!" Usagi reached them, panting as she slowed. Leaning against the taller girl, her face glowed when she saw the young child in Endymion's arms. "Oh, you found her! Thank goodness, I've been looking everywhere!" She reached for the girl, who shook her head and tried to hide in his neck. With a sigh, Usagi's shoulders dropped as she tilted her head back, eyes closing. "I'm sorry, I hope she's not bothering you."

"No, she's fine." Tiny fingers played with the ends of his hair, sharp tugs followed soon by awkward pats. Truth was, she acted as an anchor while the rest of him threatened to disperse. It felt wrong to be talking to Usagi like this, acting as though he did not know everything about her.

"Well, thank you again for finding her. My name's Tsukino Usagi." Her eyes, unlike the last time he saw them, were happy and curious. Alive.

This was something they had not prepared for, something so obvious that he had not put any thought into. What name could he give her? What sort of moniker did he want to go by until this farce could end?

He wanted to tell her the truth the best he could, to minimize the lies, but to do so could trigger something and that was not something he wanted to do. "Shinji." He would not lie to her, ever, beyond what was necessary to keep her from remembering. That, he decided, was the least he could do. "Shinji Minori."

"Its very nice to meet you." Her smile was almost blinding, and Endymion was mesmerized.

"Likewise." There probably should have been something else to add. Perhaps some way to politely extend the conversation, but his tongue decided all of a sudden to tie itself in knots. The last time he had seen Usagi, she had been crying, heartbroken, silently begging him to make everything better. Now here she was, almost happy.

"Forgive him, he's a bit shy."

"Oh! Haruka, do you know two know each other?"

Uranus' answer came almost too easily. "Of course. He's my uncle's kid on my mother's side." When Usagi blinked, the taller woman continued. "He, my uncle, married my mother's sister. Then they divorced before he was born. He's from my uncle's second marriage." According to Uranus, he was not related to her at all, actually, except through divorce and coincidence.

"Oh. That makes sense." Usagi then looked back at him, catching him off guard once more. "Did you just move here with your family?"

Endymion shook his head. "Just me now."

Her eyes widened, and he could have kicked himself. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"Happened a long time ago." His shoulder rose in a stiff shrug. "Barely remember."

Her head tilted to one side, in the way he knew she did when trying to figure out a puzzling situation. "You look familiar. Do I know you from some where?"

Perhaps not so fortunate. "No! I assure you, aside from being a distant cousin to Haruka, I am in no way related to anyone you know!" His silent promise was already broken within the first two minutes. To get the conversation away from him, he turned to the young girl in his arms who had up to that point been looking on with curious confusion. "So, who is this cute little girl here?"

"She's Chibi-Chibi. She's my...baby...sister?"

"Chibi-Chibi?" Knowing she was once again the center of attention, the little girl giggled and again patted Endymion on the cheek. "Well, she certainly does look like you." With a gentle finger, he traced one of the heart-shaped buns in the girl's dark pink hair. Chibi-Chibi's smile was shy, and once again he was helpless to return with a small grin of his own, knowing Usagi never had a sister. Still, looking at this young girl, he could not get a sense that there was anything wrong with her.

"Yes," Usagi's voice trailed off, an odd sound in her voice causing him to turn his gaze on her. She was staring at him, trying to figure out something that she was missing, a recognizable link. Then she blinked and shook her head with a laugh. "Anyway, we need to get going. Come on, Chibi-Chibi. Its time for lunch!"

Endymion set the reluctant girl on the ground. He gave her a wave, which she returned before bouncing over to Usagi and grabbing her hand. "It was very good to meet you! Hopefully I'll see you again soon!"

"You will be. He's going to your school once he gets settled in."

"Oh, you are?"

"I am?"

"Yes. And he's staying at Setsuna's for the moment."

"Oh good!" Usagi waved and smiled. "I'll see you both again soon, then!"

Then she was leaving, and the sight of her walking away sent a panic through Endymion and he took a step to follow. "Wait!"

Uranus' hand was on his arm again, and Usagi was too far away to hear him. "Let her go, King." Her voice was firm, but not unkind. Then her hand whacked him upside the head. "What were you thinking? Shinji Minori? Really? Are you the king of redundancy now?"

"I panicked! I didn't think I'd meet her so suddenly!" The full brunt of his previous encounter returned to him, and without Usagi there to muddle his senses, he buried his face in his hands. "I can't believe this. And what about you? Was that seriously the best you could come up with?"

Uranus just rolled her eyes. "Come on, Minori. Time to go figure out the rest of our ill conceived cover story."

xoxoxox

Carrying Chibi-Chibi, Usagi kept glancing back in the direction she had come from. Her dream circled in her mind, bouncing off the newcomer's name. Chibi-Usa's face floated through her mind as it had been then, ever shifting, as her final words echoed within Usagi's psyche. Keep the truthful child safe.

Was there a connection between the dream and this strange boy? He seemed so cold and distant, not exactly the shy boy Haruka insisted he was. There was not anything about him that screamed out he needed to be kept safe from anything.

Yet, that did not explain that look she had seen in his eyes. She had seen the same look on Mamo-chan and Mako-chan. She had seen it on Motoki when Reika was studying in Africa, and now on her own face when she was no longer pretending in front of the mirror. It was a look of loss and loneliness.

As Chibi-Chibi tugged on her cheeks, Usagi decided that the odds of there being a connection were slim to none. "Okay, okay, we'll get some lunch, I promise."

That did not mean, of course, that she would not do what she could to chase that look away. Perhaps, if she could do it for him, she could do it for herself as well.

-End Chapter Five


	6. Insomnia

The thing about post traumatic stress that many people could not understand, especially in aggravated cases, was that it lasted a life time. For some, it could be triggered by something as innocuous as the sound and feel of fireworks. For others, the clean scent of a specific brand of detergent could drag memories of a rather forgettable childhood kicking and screaming from the subconscious. For Endymion, there were no triggers in the waking world. It was when he dreamed, when he could not escape himself, that events of the past came back to haunt him.

For many years, he dreaded the nights. He would study or clean until exhaustion finally claimed him. Ephemeral images of memories forgotten would play themselves out in such horrific ways that he would wake up with a cry on his tongue, only to have no recollection of what had his heart racing and his legs feeling as though they had been hollowed out by a dull instrument. Memories of a past life would play out in his dream scape, twisted to such ways that he could not remember if a princess had been killed or had stabbed herself with his own sword. Then there were the memories of battles, and deaths and rebirths.

Now his dreams had more fodder, and this time there was no soothing hand or mumbled words at his side, talking him down from night terrors and lulling him, finally, into a dreamless slumber. This time, it was them he dreamed about. It was her eyes as their daughter disappeared that haunted him, and there was no one now to soothe away the nightmares.

After waking up for the second time that night, having slept a total of three hours, he recognized that sleep would not come again. On silent feet he crept to the kitchen, careful not to disturb Pluto. After the first night he insisted on taking the couch, as to do otherwise brushed against his deep rooted manners. It made these nightly excursions easier with the door shut firm between them.

Settling on the floor, he went to work on scrubbing the dingy kitchen tiles. There was more he wanted to do, but he had yet to broach the subject of repairing the shack with her. It would keep him occupied outside of school, which he still cursed Uranus for forcing that one on him, and would likely drive him to exhausted sleep.

"You don't have to do this." The sudden voice caused Endymion to jump. His senses were not as sharp as they should be if Pluto could sneak up on him.

"The work keeps me busy." A few seconds of silent scrubbing stretched out, closing around him in a suffocating stillness. Desperate to escape this feeling, he blurted out the first question that came to mind. "How did this place come to be on the property, anyway?"

"I asked the realtor the exact same question."

"Oh? She tell you anything about it?"

"A man lived in the main house along with his wife and four children. The house, while spacious, barely had room enough for all those people." Pluto knelt beside him and dipped her hand in the water bucket. Pulling out a sponge she scrubbed along the floor, scouring the stains that refused to move. "One day, the man's brother came to the house. The brothers had been estranged for many years, as the man had gone in favor of family while the brother chose a career. Now, the brother was married, but had no children."

"How does this get to the house?"

"Well, the brother's business went under. He was in debt, and had many collectors after him. He could pay them off, but he could not afford to keep his home. So he went to the man, who felt torn. He barely had room in his house for his wife and children, yet he could not turn away his own brother. So together, they built this place so that the young couple could have a place to stay."

This time, the silence did not seem to close around him. There was an almost sense of peace as he scrubbed and cleaned, with Pluto doing the same beside him.

xoxoxox

She was running late. This was not a rare occurrence for Usagi, but it was usually due to a missed alarm. This time, she had actually gotten up with the annoying buzzer, ate a calm breakfast, and set out about her day. There was a detour along her way to school, though, and the reason why she had made sure to wake up a little early.

As she slipped the envelopes into the mailbox, she had allowed a moment of melancholy to sweep through her. Last night's dreams were still as hazy as the previous dreams, but she still sensed that they had something to do with Mamo-chan.

Her ring glinted in the early morning sun, the sparkle catching her eye as she looked down. Twisting it, she wondered if he had anything that constantly reminded him of her. Would he ever look at a park bench and not see the times they just sat in the park? Would he ever pass by a rabbit and not immediately think of her? Every time someone said 'protect,' her heart would jump. Whenever she saw a Tuxedo her breath would catch in her lungs. Roses simply made her cry.

Usagi would have stood there all day if it was not for the sudden honking horn. On the street, someone had crossed on a red light. Realizing the time, she dashed in the direction of her school. Despite getting up early and leaving on time, Usagi was almost late to class.

"Cutting it a little close there, aren't you, Odango?" Seiya leaned over his desk, propping himself up on the back of her chair as she hunched over a sheet of stationary.

"Hmm." Pulling out her unfinished homework, she maneuvered her books and notebooks around so that the piece of paper was always accessible. Her pencil was poised over the paper, but nothing would come to mind. Absently, she jerked her head in her friend's direction. "Don't call me that."

Class started soon after that, not giving the idol any time to come up with any form of retort. Through the morning Usagi found herself glancing at the door, expecting to see the cold boy from yesterday. By lunch, she figured that perhaps Haruka was wrong and that Minori would be going to a different school altogether.

Usagi grabbed her lunch and headed toward the door to meet up with the girls, but before she could Seiya called out to her. "Are you okay?"

That was the answer of the week, it seemed. She could not shake this feeling of being not okay. Something was intrinsically wrong in her universe aside from no response to her letters, but for the life of her she could not figure out what. Still she turned, bright smile in place. "Of course! I just ran late this morning and didn't get breakfast."

This small lie would hopefully make people stop worrying about her. When they worried, she just felt worse.

xoxoxox

Michiru sifted through the neatly packed box and wondered if they would find what they were looking for. She doubted that the records would be in a box marked 'kitchen,' but they continued on it became obvious that Usagi'd had a hand in helping Mamoru pack. The girl, not the most organized on her best days, had been such an emotional mess by the end of her assistance that finding something in the wrong box was not too much of a stretch.

If it were only Mamoru who had packed, she knew that they would indeed be in the box marked 'important papers.' Perhaps even 'office.' It was obvious to see which boxes had not been packed by him, given the near childish scrawl, and with the obvious already checked they set about going through these others.

"This is nearly impossible. Doesn't Kitten know anything about packing?" Haruka threw a can of shaving cream back in the box marked 'dishes.' "Remind me again why we're here?"

Stifling a chuckle, Michiru opened a box meant to be for movies and sifted through a few forks. "Because you're the one who insisted 'Minori' goes to school. So we are here to get Mamoru's transcripts." The plan was to alter the names and dates, which would be easier than just completely forging an entire new set of paperwork. It eliminated much of the guess work and would give the man turned boy a sense of self.

"It'd be easier with Ami," Haruka grumbled as she hoisted the heaviest so far, marked 'pillows.' "Girl's a genius when it comes to computers. Bet she could whip these papers up in no time flat."

"Oh?" Michiru drifted toward her very special someone and bumped her hip against the taller girl. "How do you know so much about Usagi's friends?"

"Why? Jealous?" Reaching in the box and shoving aside a completely random teddy bear, Haruka's eyes widened. "Victory may be ours."

"It usually is." Michiru assisted Haruka in pulling out the file folders. "We should really ask her what her organizational method is."

"Get the packing done as quick as possible so that she could enjoy alone time with lover boy." She tossed the first folder aside after flipping through it. "Which, knowing Kitten, involved PG rated cuddles. And cupcakes."

Michiru bit her lip as she pulled something out of the box. "Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that." It was a pajama top. Though it was nothing risque, it was definitely feminine and way to small for Mamoru.

Haruka clenched her jaw as she swiped the top away. "It involved PG rated cuddles and cupcakes."

Patting her lover's arm, Michiru picked up a folder. "Whatever you say, Papa Haruka." Her eyebrows rose as she flipped through the papers. "Well, looks like we found what we were looking for."

"If it got above PG, I'd have to kill him all over again."

Michiru took in the tense stance, the clenched fist, and knew that it was not just Usagi's innocence that was troubling Haruka. Stepping close, she caressed one cheek while kissing the other. "If it makes you feel better, I'm not the most comfortable with this situation either." She folded her hands neatly over the tall shoulder and rested her cheek on her fingers. Her eyes were trained upward, not allowing the taller woman to escape physically or mentally. "But you have seen him, you know him. No matter what life, he would do whatever it takes to keep her safe."

"Yeah, but in that body? I was afraid that if I sneezed I'd knock him over." She sighed, glancing down into blue green eyes. "Its not just that. Normally, I wouldn't doubt that he wanted to keep her safe. But he doesn't want to be here, Michiru. He doesn't want to be."

Neptune's eyes widened slightly before she understood. "I would feel the same in his situation. But I'd like to think I would still do what I could for the one I loved, even if she wasn't exactly who I fell in love with."

Haruka regarded her for a couple seconds before laughing. "Now I'm the one who's jealous."

Raising a delicate brow, Michiru grinned. "Of yourself?"

"Well, it wouldn't be me, so damn right."

xoxoxox

Jupiter could feel the power of the trees engulf her as she volleyed her most powerful attack against the phage. It did a considerable amount of damage, but nothing seemed to slow it down. They needed to buy some time before Sailor Moon arrived.

Sailor Equine, a rather horsey phage, threw a volley of exploding horse shoes at the girls. They hurt like hell and pissed her off. Electrical current circled around her, tingling along her skin, before she sent a wave of lightning at the phage hard enough to daze it.

Sailor Moon showed up then, late and lacking a certain vibrant gleam. She made quick work of the phage before rushing to check on the hapless victim.

"There's something wrong with her," Makoto commented as she and Venus detransformed. "Have you noticed it too?"

Minako contemplated the direction where Sailor Moon still sat with unconscious former enemy. "Well yes, but I thought it was because she missed Mamoru."

"No, its something more. Besides that, I mean." Makoto contemplated the shorter girl's actions for a few more seconds before giving a mild shrug. "I'm sure she'd tell us if it were something important."

Still, it had surprised her when Usagi had not started gushing over the letters she received from Mamoru. It was one thing she had been so certain would happen, and even looked forward to. There was nothing of the sort, and the young girl only commented on him if she were asked directly.

The urge to protect and coddle welled up within her, forcing her to call out an invitation as Usagi stepped from behind the trees, readjusting her school top. "Usagi, I'm going to be baking after school today. Want to come over?"

Eyes lighting up, Usagi grabbed onto her arms and nodded. "Can I lick the spoon?"

Makoto chuckled and patted the girl's back. "Tell you what. You can even lick the bowl." She turned to the collective group of senshi, each one now in civilian form. "Anyone else want to come over?"

In the end, due to cram schools, chores, and a mountain of homework, Usagi ended up being the only one coming home with her. Makoto made a mental stock of baking supplies she had at home. They should not need to run to the store unless they wanted to make something with lime.

When they reached her apartment, Usagi climbed up on a stool next to the counter to watch Makoto as she worked, The tall girl was sure that if she ever had a child, the would not be nearly as exuberant about watching her bake cookies as Usagi was.

The silence was comfortable, and Makoto was not exactly comfortable with breaking it, but curiosity weighed her down. "So, hear any exciting news from America lately?"

To her surprise Usagi just shrugged. "Nothing new, really. He's been busy."

Busy. That's always how Mamoru was, busy. Never happy, or sad, or homesick. Makoto beat the eggs into the cookie batter with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. It would not hurt Mamoru to tell Usagi how he was feeling, not what he was doing. But then, this was Mamoru, and despite being one of the better ones he was still a guy. And guys tended to shy away from such things as discussing how they felt.

Makoto's forms of emotional expression, while there, were physical. If someone pissed her off, a quick punch to the face was quite an effective means of telling them that they suck. Talking about how she felt, while possible for her to do so, was much like being bilingual in that it took a few moments for her mind to translate from fists to words. It was mostly because of this girl, though, that it was not a foreign language altogether.

"How are you doing, Usagi?" In honor of her friend coming over, she decided that the bunny shaped cookie cutter was in order.

"I'm fine, honest, I promise I'm fine!" The blonde was a bit too persistent in her claim, but it was more the white knuckles on the stirring spoon that alerted Makoto to her distress. "I just miss him, is all. I'll be fine, I promise. So please just stop worrying about me so much?"

Makoto placed the cookies in the oven. "Of course I'm going to worry. You're one of my best friends."

"But if people worry about me over this, then how can they trust me with something as important as stopping the phages? Its not that big a deal, really, and we've been through so much worse!" Makoto turned in surprise at the sound of a sniff. Though she was not crying, Usagi was holding back a few tears.

She wrapped her arms around the small frame of the girl, holding her tight and close. This was another thing that may as well have been a foreign language to her a few years ago, but now she could see no other way to console a hurting friend.

"I think we'd have a hard time trusting you if you didn't feel this way." Her fingertips stroked silky blond hair. "You feel the way you need to. No more worrying about us worrying. It's what we're here for, Usagi."

Small hands clutched at her sides as Usagi burrowed closer with a loud sniff. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. Besides, we have all the time in the world, if you need it. Or at least fifteen minutes when the cookies are done."

The answering giggle, though full of tears, was perhaps the most honest one Makoto had heard from the girl in weeks. Though she knew not everything was better now, she vowed that she would keep an eye on the girl.

xoxoxox

Sleep eluded him once more as nightmares twisted about his subconscious. Cleaning and repairing was the only way he knew to keep his mind occupied. The shack itself had a sound foundation, with little plumbing and electrical issues aside from a groan and flicker. They could wait for awhile, and in the mean time he was hard at work getting the rest of the place presentable.

Endymion stretched as he surveyed the walls, pleased with his progress. Despite the sudden lack of height, reaching the higher cracks only required the aide of a stepping ladder.

Earlier Pluto had gone and acquired the necessary supplies he would need for tonight's project. His goal was to spackle the cracks and prepare the room for painting. He would likely need to wait for the weekend, as his schedule was suddenly dominated by school, but the preparation would take away much of the headache during the actual painting process. With slow measured strokes, he covered the cracks.

Stepping back to inspect his work, hand wiping over his brow, he looked around the small shack that was slowly looking more like a home.

He had to wonder though. What was a shack doing on Pluto's property?

-End Chapter Six


End file.
